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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



RELIGIOUS CONSOLATION. 



• • • • Ye believe in God, believe also in me. 

• • • I go to prepare a place for you , 

• • • that where I am, there ye may be aVso. * John 14 : 1—3. 



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BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH DOWE. 

1836. 



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Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1836, by 

JOSEPHDOWE, 

in the District Clerk's office, of the District Court of 
, Massachusetts. 



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CONTENTS. 



Page. 

The Good of Affliction 1 

The Mourner comforted 19 

Erroneous Views of Death 20 

The Departed 55 

Death and Sleep 57 

Immortality 59 

Trust in God under Afflictions 60 

Filial Trust ^0 

The Future Life 72 

Friends in Heaven 1Q5 

Hope 106 

Thanksgiving in Affliction 108 

Trust amidst Trial 13q 

Life and Death j3q 

The Voices of the Dead 132 

Voices of the Dead 15q 

To the Memory of a Friend 152 



IV CONTENTS. 

A Prayer in Affliction 153 

Duties of the Afflicted 154 

The Mourner blessed 174 

Consolation 175 

The Dangers of Adversity 176 

Trust in Divine Love 1 95 

The Promise of Jesus 196 

The Believer's Hope 196 

The Uses of Affliction 193 

Time passing 215 

The Christian's Death 215 

The Hope of Immortality 217 

God our Father 227 



INTRODUCTION. 



CHRISTIAN FAITH. 

*' Ye believe in God, believe also in me. ' ' 

The end of human existence on earth is 
improvement, moral growth, progress towards 
spiritual perfection. Trouble, as one of the 
means conducive to this end, is an essential 
part of the system under which we live. It is 
therefore a manifestation of divine beneficence, 
a proof of the interest that the Father takes in 
us, not a ground of complaint or distrust. The 
question which we need to solve is this,-— how 
can the outward trouble be so received that 
it shall not disturb the feelings which we 
carry within us — how shall the mirror of the 
breast be saved from reflecting the images of 
disaster ? To this question Jesus has pointed 
out the only answer in those memorable 



VI 



words which he addressed to his disciples 
in view of his separation from them : " Let 
not your heart be troubled : ye believe in 
God, believe also in me." Christian faith it is 
which will enable us to preserve serenity amidst 
all changes of condition. We may be patient 
and calm, even more, may be thoughtful of im- 
provement, and successful in its acquisition, 
whilst the severest calamities are proving their 
own impotency and our strength, if we have 
this safeguard and solace. Christian faith can 
sustain us, comfort us, guide us, when every 
thing else would be ineffectual for either of 
these purposes, and might only aggravate our 
distress. Let this faith abide in the soul, and 
no acquaintance with disappointment can ren- 
der it distrustful or perverse. The Christian 
believes, therefore he is tranquil, submissive, 
steadfast in duty, therefore he makes progress 
when other men are thrown back, therefore his 
character, like the stars seen in the high lati- 
tudes of the earth, shines brightest over a scene 
of desolation. 

This faith is indispensable to man's relief. 
He cannot do without it. His heart will be 
troubled, tempest-tost, overwhelmed, if he have 



Vll 

it not. What caxi take its place ? What can 
anticipate its offices of support and comfort ? 
Sympathy may proffer its condolence, and 
soften the pangs over which it grieves ; but it 
can neither heal the wounded affections nor 
revive the down-stricken hopes. Philosophy 
may repeat its maxims drawn from long ob- 
servation of life, and utter the counsels of wis- 
dom ; but they fall on the heart like the boast- 
ings of health on a sick man's ear, who feels 
that they but remind him of his distemper. 
Even the world may intrude, and invite the trou- 
bled soul to forget its griefs among the excite- 
ments of business or society ; but the invitation 
grates harshly on the sensibilities, and seems 
rather like insult than condolence. When ex- 
ternal sources of alleviation thus evince their in- 
sufficiency, if the soul which has not learned the 
lessons of faith turns in upon itself, what does 
it find to give it peace ? No habit of resigna- 
tion, no temper of acquiescence, no confidence 
in a love more far-sighted than its own, no 
hope of a richer good which shall issue from 
the disappointment, as the more abundant 
stream from the earth in which it seemed to 
be lost. All within is sad, while all without 



Vlll 

is distasteful ; and if the sentiment, whether of 
passionate sorrow or of sullen endurance, which 
occupies the heart, were expressed in words, 
it would probably vent itself in abuse of life 
and crimination of God. Such is man's need 
of faith. 

But what is this faith, which can render the 
invaluable service that in time of trouble we 
shall in vain seek elsewhere ? Our Master 
presents it under a two-fold aspect, — as faith 
in God, and faith in his Son. 

Faith in God as the Supreme, Eternal, Per- 
fect One, faith in his character and govern- 
ment, in his presence and love, in his purposes 
and his unchangeableness. 

It is faith in the Creator, who has framed the 
worlds, and filled them with life ; who has esta- 
blished the principles which regulate the move- 
ments of matter, and the experiences of mind ; 
the Former of the body, by whom this cu- 
rious and delicate structure was raised from 
the dust, and who has not only made it sub- 
ject to change and decay, but has determined 
the causes which shall work its overthrow, so 
that not a pain can be felt, nor a vital function 
cease, but in obedience to laws which sustain 



IX 

the health and life of countless multitudes; 
the Author of the spirit, which he has endow- 
ed with all its fine faculties and marvel- 
lous sympathies, and has put into this frail 
body, that it may both enjoy much and suffer 
much, that it may learn much and do much, 
through the connection and the mutual depen- 
dence which thence arise. Faith views God as 
the infinitely wise Original of all that is seen 
or known or felt. 

It also contemplates him as the Guardian of 
the universe which he has created — the God 
of providence ; without whose knowledge and 
consent nothing happens — ^whether it be the 
eruption of a volcano that buries cities in an 
instantaneous grave, or the fall of a sparrow in 
its solitary flight — whether it be the occasion 
that gathers friends to rejoice in the hopes of 
kindred hearts, or the event that calls them 
to join their tears and their prayers in the 
house of mourning. The God of providence — 
there is great meaning in these words. They 
describe a presence and a power which have 
connection with every circumstance of life, and 
which keep the laws of the Creator in exer- 
cise and his purposes in fulfilment through all 



which men call vicissitude, accident, or mys- 
tery. They express the continual dependence 
of all creatures upon God, and indicate the 
confidence with which events may be submit- 
ted to his will. Such a confidence is the fruit 
of Christian faith. 

This faith likewise recognises the moral 
government of God, acknowledging that in the 
providence which he maintains he is setting 
forth and enforcing a discipline suited to pro- 
mote the end for which the moral creation re- 
ceived its endowments. To the Christian this 
truth is as a " lamp to his feet and a light to his 
path." It reconciles the contradictory, it ex- 
plains the ambiguous. He sees a purpose, a 
righteous and gracious purpose in all that 
he suffers, and the disappointment of his hopes, 
no less than the attainment of his wishes, 
seems to him as a page on which the hand of 
infinite Wisdom has written lessons for his 
study. How true to him are those words : 

Each blessing to my soul more dear 
Because conferred by thee ! 

but equally true those other lines : 

He everywhere hath rule, 
And all things serve his might ; 
His every act pure blessing is, 
His path unsullied light. 



XI 

To be the subject of a government just in its 
principles, invariable in its administration, and 
beneficent in its results, should be, and by the 
Christian believer is, accounted a ground of 
rejoicing. 

Yet once more, and to sum up what we 
have said in one word, this faith embraces 
God as a Father. Who can tell the signifi- 
cance of this name, or measure the extent of 
its consolation? The Father — such was the 
title which Jesus delighted to give to the 
Supreme Being, the Creator, Preserver, and 
Governor ; in which he comprised all the 
ideas that these terms represent, and by which 
he taught us to address the God of nature, of 
providence, and of grace. The Father, whose 
regard for us, whose constant, watchful, tender 
love no other word would denote, who chose, 
by referring to the inexpressible yearnings, the 
unconquerable afiection, of the parental bosom, 
to signify his own disposition towards us — the 
Father is the object of Christian faith, of that 
faith which is but another name for filial sen- 
timent, for childlike trust, for heartfelt piety. 
" Let not your heart be troubled !" And why 
not? "Ye believe in God," whom I have 



xu 

revealed as the Father. Could Jesus have 
given a stronger reason ? 

He added however — " believe," or " ye be- 
lieve also in me." What is the faith in Christ 
that can compose our griefs and subdue our 
anxieties ? It is faith in him as the beloved 
and chosen of the Father, in whom we behold 
the messenger, representative, and image of the 
ever-blessed God. It is faith in him as the 
kindest of friends, who brought from heaven 
inestimable gifts, and sacrificed his life to in- 
sure their transmission to future ages. It is 
faith in him as the authority for those truths 
which have just now been reviewed, by which 
the soul is made to feel the presence and love 
of the Infinite One. It is faith in him as the 
pattern, whose character we should adopt for 
our standard of judgment and our goal of ef- 
fort, from whose life we should learn how to 
do good, from whose death how to suflTer evil. 
It is faith in him as one who has "brought life 
and immortality to light," who has taken away 
the vain terrors of death and shown us the 
home to which death is but the passage. It is 
faith in that divine influence of which he, is 
the type, and in that glorious consummation 



XIU 

of which he is the pledge, — the influence which 
sanctifies the humble, and the consummation 
which will present them redeemed from sin 
and infirmity, and all that oppressed and all 
that afflicted them here, an innumerable 
company, partakers of the heaven in the 
dawning of whose light they had walked on 
earth. " Let not your heart be troubled." And 
why not ? " Ye believe in me," whose w^ord 
is truth, whose spirit is love, whose gift is 
peace, whose promise is eternal life. What 
more could he have said ? 

The effects of such a faith are obvious. It 
takes away fear, banishes distrust, excludes or 
moderates anxiety, and sheds an influence 
over the soul like that which music exerts on 
susceptible natures, overpowering their pas- 
sions and soothing their griefs to rest. But it 
produces no dreamy indolence. It quickens 
into generous action the faculties which it re- 
leases from the bondage of impatient desire, 
and invigorates the soul which it tranquillizes, 
fulfilling the promise, " in quietness and in con- 
fidence shall be your strength." There is 
stillness, but not the silence of sleep ; repose, 
but not the torpor of apathy. There is effort, 



XIV 

struggle, conflict, self-denial ; but over the 
whole internal world reigns the spirit of or- 
der, and this spirit is sustained in the exer- 
cise of its authority by the faith which per- 
suades every sentiment and desire into obedi- 
ence. There is a spiritual energy which is 
mightier than any violence of passion, yet is 
manifested only in the calmness which it dif- 
fuses throughout the character and over the 
whole life, a calmness which no one mistakes 
for unnatural or artificial composure, but all, 
even the most selfish, behold with admiration, 
and all, even the most careless and vicious, 
wish they might possess when their trial 
comes. The soul is indeed deeply moved, but 
it looks to God, and in the Father's face sees 
the justification of its confidence through every 
change. " If it be possible, let this cup pass 
from me," may be its silent prayer, when it 
perceives the impending calamity, yet before the 
blow has fallen it adds — " not my will, but 
thine be done." Come what may, it cannot 
even suspect that there should be forgetfulness 
or error ; and therefore it surrenders itself to 
the disposal of a love which is never swayed 
by blind impulses, nor ever betrayed into 



XV 

unwise measures. The Being who afflicts is 
the Being in w^hom it trusts. In its trouble it 
goes to Him from whom trouble comes, for he 
is " the God of all comfort,'' and with him dwell 
peace and hope. The divine presence is, in 
the fine language of the prophet, " like a se- 
rene heat when the sun shineth, like a dewy 
cloud in the heat of harvest." Hence there 
are no repinings, no secret complaints, no half- 
sceptical surmisings, no anxious forebodings, 
no rebellion of spirit, no reluctance of will. 
But when most afflicted, the Christian is not 
disquieted in vain, since he has remembered the 
counsel of the Psalmist, " Hope thou in God;'* 
or if in his extremity he should be compelled to 
cry out, as did the ancient servant of God, 
" I am feeble and sore-broken, I have roared by 
reason of the disquietness of my heart," yet he 
can add, " Lord, all my desire is before thee, 
and my groaning is not hid from thee. In 
thee, Lord, do I hope." Such is the effect 
of true religious faith in time of trouble. 

It is still a question of interest, how faith ob- 
tains this efficacy. A few words will con- 
tain the answer. It is in the first place a rea- 
sonable faith, the understanding admitting 



XVI 

the justice of that control which it exerts over 
the heart. Can any thing be more reasonable 
than that we should believe in God, or that be- 
lieving we should trust in him ? Is not the 
universe full of the evidences of his being, is it 
not inscribed all over with the marks of his 
perfections, must not he do his pleasure here 
and everywhere, and ought not we to re- 
joice in his supreme dominion ? " Shall not 
the Judge of all the earth do right ?" was 
the inquiry of one, who ages before the birth 
of the Savior thus expressed his confidence 
in the Divine rectitude. Shall not our Father 
do what is best ? is the still stronger appeal 
which the heart may make when beset by 
manifold trials, now that Jesus has made 
known the paternal love of the Supreme. Will 
any one of us, ignorant as we are, arraign his 
dealings, and refuse to adore his will, because 
we cannot see its issues : when the very afflic- 
tion that confronts us may be the most fruitful 
blessing that he could send ? Perfect trust in 
God is altogether reasonable. And not less 
reasonable is it to believe in Christ, who gave 
such clear and abundant proofs of his mission. 
Reliance on him is as just as it is consolatory. 



XVll 

Have the truths which beam from his cross so 
little divinity, or do they import so little, that 
he is a weak man who draws comfort from 
them ? No, no. Reason refuses its assent. 

But not only is the understanding convinc- 
ed, the affections are addressed. They are not 
left bleeding and helpless when stricken down 
by the providence of God. The busy and the 
happy may pass them by, like the priest and 
the Levite of the parable ; but Christian faith, 
like the good Samaritan, approaches them 
and comforts them with its gentle offices of 
sympathy, and lifts them up and bears them 
in its arms to the Father's presence. There 
they find a place of repose, where their wounds 
are healed, and they recover strength, while 
learning those exercises which can never in- 
volve disappointment. The pure love of earth 
becomes the everlasting love of heaven. 

The hopes too experience the protection ot 
faith. It raises them from the dust, and re- 
plumes their shattered wings, that they may 
soar on high and pursue their course through 
regions of immortality. How can the Chris- 
tian be troubled who in the future sees in- 
finite progress, unbroken union, and per- 
■Q-w 



XVlll 

petual happiness ? How can he be troubled, 
whose hopes have already penetrated the man- 
sions which Jesus went from earth to prepare, 
and have conversed there with the honored 
and loved whom this world has lost ? 

Yet once more ; this faith is pre-eminently- 
practical, calling the soul to duty and bestow- 
ing upon it the ability to persevere. It forbids 
idle regrets and profitless contemplations, and 
while it violates not the sanctity of the past, it 
summons the energies to do the work of the 
present, whatever it be. It rebukes that 
habit of grief which feeds itself with bitter 
thoughts, as alike unjust to God and injurious 
to the soul. It makes obedience at once the 
test and security of solace, and by interesting 
both the mind and the heart in the duties 
which are waiting for performance, it lightens 
the burthen of sorrow and provides the satis- 
factions of virtuous effort. 

With such connections and influences, can 
any person wonder at the effects of faith ? 
The extent of its efficiency may be still farther 
illustrated by considering the subjects and 
the occasions that prove its power. It may 
be cherished by every one, and none by whom 



XIX 

it is cherished will fail to receive its consola- 
tion. There is not a man on earth too high to 
be controlled by its authority, nor too low to 
be reached by its pity. It addresses to the learn- 
ed truths which human study never could evolve 
from the mysteries of the universe. It be- 
stows on the rich support which all their 
wealth could not buy. It offers its counsel 
to the young, and its solace to the aged. In- 
firmity leans upon the staff which this heavenly 
visitant puts into its hand, while ignorance re- 
joices to be made wise in the knowledge which 
it communicates, and poverty seizes on the 
revelations which are better than all earthly 
treasures. It is human nature which cries out 
for its ass-istance, and since the elements of this 
nature are in all men the same, faith must be a 
benefactor to all. Amidst the Alpine recesses of 
Switzerland, and in the lowly hut of the Green- 
lander, there have been prayers and rejoicings 
and consolations and hopes at the very moment 
when they were heard in the cathedrals of Eng- 
land, and felt in the hearts of titled men and 
noblewomen who feared God and loved the 
Savior amidst all the splendor of their high 
estate. Want is universal, and fear is univer- 
sal, and love is universal, but faith is mightier 



XX 



than they all, and can comfort every soul 
which they afflict. 

And again, there is no condition so disas- 
trous, no calamity so severe, no suffering so 
extreme, that let it fall upon rich or poor, 
high or low, wise or simple, old or young, 
Christian faith cannot furnish the relief and 
solace which are needed. No occasion can 
arise which shall set its power at defiance. 
Of this the history of Jesus affords the strong- 
est possible illustration. He was sustained 
by his faith in the h6urs of his temptation 
and his affliction. It was in reference to 
his own sudden and fearful death, which 
he anticipated, not by a vague presentiment 
such as sometimes gives warning to the 
heart of its near separation from the scenes of 
earth, but by prophetic foreknowledge — it was 
under the clear vision of Gethsemane and 
Pilate's judgment-hall and Calvary, that he 
held that most touching conversation with his 
disciples, in which he aimed to infuse into their 
minds his own serenity. And as the events 
of that awful day when crucifixion sealed a 
life of innocence and closed a heaven-appointed 
ministry drew near, and he could not repress 



XXI 

the exclamation, " My soul is exceeding sor- 
rowful," he recovered himself from the dejec- 
tion into which he was sinking by a triumphant 
exercise of faith in his Father, the same who 
is our Father and our God. If we turn 
from the Savior to his apostles, their situa- 
tion gives new force to his words. What a 
disappointment was hanging over them — how 
deep a darkness it was that would soon en- 
velop them — how heavy a sorrow that would 
fall on their hearts ! Their Master, their 
friend, their stay taken from them by a violent 
death, and they left to struggle alone Avith the 
evils of life a thousand fold aggravated by 
their late indulgence of delightful expectations. 
Yet with reference to this calamity Jesas said 
to them, " Let not your heart be troubled : ye 
believe in God, ye believe also in me ;" as if he 
would teach them that no change could come 
so unexpected or so extensive or so heart- 
rending, that their faith might not be a suf- 
ficient solace. 

These are examples for our instruction. 
They show us that in the gloomiest hours we 
may be supported and comforted by our faith. 
Let it be that the heaviest stroke which 



XXll 

the Divine providence could inflict has fallen 
upon our hearts, it must not, for it need not, 
crush them. They may still be firm and tran- 
quil. Let it be that the pleasant home is 
made desolate, and the affections which 
had been justly awakened are denied fur- 
ther indulgence, and the hopes on which 
Heaven seemed to smile have become like bit- 
ter dust, and the society in which we were re- 
joicing is exchanged for loneliness, and the 
sympathies which we were strengthening can 
be nourished only in imagination, and the duties 
which we were looking to another to help us in 
performing must be discharged by our single 
fidelity, and the life which seemed to promise 
a harvest of ever-growing and ever-ripening 
satisfactions appears now like a waste over 
which a burning wind has swept, and let it be 
that all this reverse has come upon us in a mo- 
ment, and all this suffering struck home at a 
single blow ; still " let not our heart be trou- 
bled." Let it cleave to God and to the Savior. 
Let it look up, to the Father's benignant coun- 
tenance, never more benignant than when seen 
through the clouds of affliction ; let it look for- 
ward, to the immortality where patience shall 



XXlll 

have its recompense, and trust shall realize its 
hope, and love shall be more precious for its 
earthly trials, and sadness shall never mingle 
in the soul's experience ; let it look inward, to 
the spiritual nature of which it is a part, and 
which is developed and perfected by discipline ; 
let it look abroad, and see duties in which it 
can find healthful and useful employment. Let 
it believe in God, let it believe in Christ — let 
it have a true faith, and it will not be troubled. 
It will be clothed with resignation, it will be 
armed with fortitude. It will remember past 
mercies, and be grateful ; it will consider pre- 
sent engagements, and be ready to feel and to 
pray for others ; it will commit its destiny to 
the Lord, and doing his will receive with meek- 
ness the chastisements, while it lays hold on 
the promises, of his love. 

In these remarks we have but glanced at some 
of the topics of Christian faith, particularly at 
that great doctrine of immortality, to which the 
heart turns with special interest in the time of 
affliction. The value of this doctrine, and of 
others on which something has been said, it is 
the object of the following pages to exhibit. 



XXIV 

They contain selections from English and 
American writers, whose names are familiar 
in this community, — Price, Cappe, Channing, 
Dewey, Palfrey, Parker, Colman and oth- 
ers. Many of the pieces here printed will 
be recognised as of recent publication. 
The idea of preparing the present volume 
arose out of the belief that these materials if 
brought together would constitute a valuable 
book of consolation. Other extracts of a simi- 
lar character have been added ; and upon 
whatever page the reader may open, it is be- 
lieved that he will find "words of comfort." 
That they may soothe the grief of bereave- 
ment, and lighten the load of trouble under 
which the heart even of the Christian is often 
ready to faint, is the hope and prayer of the 
compiler. 

E. S. G. 
Boston, March, 1836. 



THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 



'^ It is good for me that I have been af- 
flicted:'^ — happy would it be for us if 
this were our sentiment, and if our hearts 
thus reposed in Providence. How tran- 
quil would our soul be, if, persuaded that 
God, while he has disposed all events for 
the greatest good of his creatures, retains 
them under his ceaseless control, we were 
able to confide in him in all the circum- 
stances of our life, and to see in the dis- 
pensations which appear at first the most 
inauspicious, the advantages which will 
subsequently result. Unhappily, these 
are not our thoughts, this is not our lan- 
guage. Not that our doubt extends to the 
dealings of Providence in general : we are 
not blind enough for that. We believe 
that God conducts the whole of the world, 
1 



x: THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 

that he has regulated and arranged every 
thing with the deepest wisdom ; and we 
place the most entire confidence in him as 
long as our lot is happy: but does it 
change, are our plans traversed, are we 
visited by affliction, and exposed to the 
storms of life, — then our confidence in 
Providence wavers ; we see no longer that 
wisdom and that goodness which we used 
to admire in his ways ; we can no longer 
harmonize with his tenderness the evils 
he permits us to experience ; God appears 
to have abandoned us, and murmurs are 
ready to escape from our lips. *' How 
unhappy I am : my fortune has received 
a check, from which it will never reco- 
ver !" '' He is gone, my husband, the sole 
support of my children, and I am un- 
done !" '' That calumny has dishonored 
me forever ; the idea of it will be the tor- 
ment of my life !" Foolish complaints, 
unjustifiable distrust ! God is ever a ten- 
der Father to us, even when he exposes us 
to the blows of adversity ; and those af- 
flictions, through which he leads us, may 



THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 6 

prove to us of incalculable advantage. 
This is what I now propose to show. 

We are exposed consequently to suf- 
ferings. Many of us perhaps groan now 
under the weight of some calamity. 
Those who are in prosperity may be on 
the point of falling. Evil, ever present or 
at hand, threatens us all. Come, then, all 
of us, and let us arm ourselves against 
its blows, and draw consoling thoughts 
from religion : come, and learn from it to 
what an extent the very evils of which 
we complain may, if we knew how to 
profit by them, produce the happiest con- 
sequences. 

When we are well convinced that God 
has each of us constantly under his no- 
tice ; that he wishes the happiness of us 
all, and that he has in his power a thou- 
sand means to lead us to it, we are natu- 
rally induced to ask why, this being the 
case, he often leaves us in, yea exposes 
us to, misfortune; and we can find no 
other reason, except that our afiiictions 
have their uses, seen of God, but unknown 



4 THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 

to US, and that what we call evil is really- 
good. This conclusion is confirmed by 
the Holy Scriptures in many places. They 
often represent the different troubles of 
life as benefits from God; they tell us 
that he chastens those whom he loves, 
and that our transient sufferings pro- 
duce an infinite weight of glory. What, 
then, is that happiness which we buy so 
dearly, that, to lead us to acquire it. He 
who is our Father exposes us sometimes 
to many and long calamities ? He tells 
us himself. It is through much tribula- 
tion that we may be fitted for entering on 
the happiness of heaven ; that we may be 
rendered partakers of his holiness. '' It 
is good,'' said David, after having learnt 
by experience, '' it is good for me to have 
been afiiicted, that I may learn thy stat- 
utes : before I went astray, but now I 
keep thy word." It is, then, to perfect 
our characters, to render us worthy of the 
happiness which God has in reserve for 
the righteous, that he subjects us to the 
reverses of which we complain ; that he 



THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 5 

deprives one of his fortune; that he 
takes from another a beloved child ; that 
he allows the reputation of a third to be 
torn by calumny. Doubtless, if God took 
counsel of flesh and blood, he would pur- 
sue a different course. Doubtless, if he 
left to our will the removal of evils, at 
the moment when they are on the point 
of falling on our heads, most, perhaps all 
of us, would sacrifice to the ease and 
gratification of life the inestimable ad- 
vantages which may accrue to us from 
momentary calamities. There are un- 
doubtedly persons who are in a state to 
compare the afflictions of this world with 
the fruits they produce in the next, and 
who can judge which is preferable here, a 
portion of evil, or constant prosperity. 
But God, who judges better still ; God, 
who weighs in the balance some years of 
bitterness against an eternity of bliss; 
God, who loves us and has disposed every 
thing for our greatest good, places us 
sometimes in the school of misfortune, in 

consideration of the great advantages 
1# 



b THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 

which may result ; — for adversity makes 
us enter into our own breasts^ and re- 
minds us of our sins; it humbles our 
pride ; it detaches us from the world ; 
whilst prosperity produces the opposite 
effects. 

Adversity, I r^smarked, makes us enter 
into our own hearts, and reminds us of 
our sins. The afflictions to which God 
exposes us, I know, are not always a 
natural consequence of our faults; at 
least, it is not easy to discover this con- 
nection in every instance, and sometimes 
they fall on men in whose conduct there 
is nothing criminal. But, in the most 
virtuous there are many failures, and 
often serious faults. Whilst prosperi- 
ty continues, they are not seen. Ima- 
gination lends to every object a smiling 
aspect, and men see even themselves in 
the same pleasing light. A certain un- 
definable intoxication is inseparable from 
success. This blinds even the good; 
conceals their faults from their own sight, 
and sometimes transforms them into vir- 



THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. / 

tues. Alas ! who of us does not know 
this fatal intoxication, — who of us, when 
the present is smiling, when hope is em- 
bellishing the future, when joy circulates 
throughout his frame, has not felt a cer- 
tain esteem for himself, which prevented 
him from sounding his heart ; an indul- 
gence which excused all faults, and ex- 
tolled the least excellencies? Whilst the 
children of Jacob lived around their fa- 
ther in the bosom of tranquillity and opu- 
lence, they thought not of the cruelty 
which they had been guilty of in selling 
their brother Joseph into slavery; but 
they remembered their crime when in 
Egypt, and when menaced with prison 
and death. Thirty years after their atro- 
cious sin, remorse awakens in their hard- 
ened hearts. ^^We," they say, ''are 
verily guilty concerning our brother, in 
that we saw the anguish of his soul and 
would not hear ; therefore is this distress 
come upon us." O Adversity ! thou art 
the true friend of man ! thou dost not 
blind him; thou dost not mislead him by 



8 THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 

perfidious flatteries ; thou makest him en- 
ter into his own bosom; thou presentest 
to him the mirror of truth ; thou showest 
him, what without thee he would never 
have seen, his own heart, with its weak- 
nesses, its sins, its vicious incUnations. 
What a sight ! At first he is humbled, 
saddened, confounded ; but from this men- 
tal confusion soon there ensue repent- 
ance, energy, christian resolutions, and 
on this rich foundation divine grace 
raises the edifice of his salvation ! 

But afflictions have another and most 
valuable advantage, that of humbling our 
pride. This vice, which is so contrary 
to our nature, from which our weakness, 
our imperfections, our dependence on all 
around us, ought for so many reasons to 
keep us free; this vice, which is the 
source of many others, which almost al- 
ways engenders impiety and licentious- 
ness, which is itself rebellion against God, 
and, as he himself has declared, one of 
the most ofiensive in his sight ; this 
vice, which certainly excludes him who 



THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 9 

is guilty of it from eternal happiness — 
pride, we know, insinuates itself, and 
springs up too easily in our hearts. 
Whilst we live in moderate circumstances, 
it does not commonly make great pro- 
gress; but in the rays of prosperity it 
grows, extends, produces fruit. At first 
we are disposed to ascribe our success to 
Providence ; but in proportion as it in- 
creases — in proportion, that is, as Provi- 
dence blesses our efforts, we lose sight of 
its agency : to ourselves, to our labors we 
attribute our prosperity ; it is our own in- 
dustry that increases our riches, and se- 
cures the wisdom of our enterprises ; it is 
our own merit that draws on us public 
consideration, and advances us in the 
world ; it is the goodness of our character 
that gives us friends. The admiration 
we feel towards ourselves is, we soon 
fancy, felt by others. We raise ourselves 
above them ; we affect distinguished man- 
ners ; we forget those with whom we had 
been previously connected; we display 
before their sight a luxury that astonish- 



10 THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 

es them ; we become harsh, imperious to 
our inferiors, lofty and exacting with our 
equals ; without compassion towards the 
unfortunate. Soon does he, whom for- 
tune has always favored, persuade him- 
self that it has no longer the power to 
abandon him ; that he is himself the ar- 
biter of his lot : he no longer thinks that 
his life, his talents, his happiness, his all 
comes to him from God ; that on him he 
depends for every thing. In this infatua- 
tion, swollen with pride, he casts around 
him his disdainful eyes, and exclaims, 
^^ I am alone; there is none but me on 
the earth;" and, in the spirit of Nebu- 
chadnezzar, ^' Is not this the great Baby- 
Ion, which I have built by my power, for 
my royal abode?" and, in the spirit of 
Alexander, dazzled with his success, for- 
gets that he is a man ; forgets even God 
himself 

What can recall him from this intoxi- 
cation? Nothing but the blows of ad- 
versity can work this miracle. God thun- 
ders from the highest heavens, ^' Cut 



THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 11 

down the tree ; scatter its fruit ; disperse 
its foliage." Against this man, ^' Let him 
be deprived of those riches which have 
inflated his heart ;'' — against another, 
^' Let calumny blacken his reputation, he 
has been greedy of honor ;" — against a 
third, ^' Let him be cast in disgrace from 
that dignity to which his ambition had 
caused him to ascend." O God of judg- 
ment! how terrible, yet how salutary are 
thy inflictions ! They scatter, as by en- 
chantment, those mists of vanity with 
which the proud man had been bewilder- 
ed ; they destroy that scaffolding of am- 
bitious projects that he had constructed. 
Then I he renounces those vain grandeurs 
which were the aliment of his pride and 
arrogance ; he learns to be modest to- 
wards his fellow-creatures, compassion- 
ate to; the unfortunate. He sees himself 
as he is, poor, wretched, and naked ; he 
acknowledges that all his talents, his 
qualities, his advantages, all that he has, 
come I from God, and he humbles himself 
under his powerful hand. It is thus that 



12 THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 

the blows of Providence, which take from 
us the objects of our affectionSj destroy 
our pride. 

They do still more; they detach our 
hearts from earth, and direct them to 
heaven. What a multitude of good things 
have been shed on our abode! How 
is every thing arranged for the hap- 
piness of the beings who dwell here ! 
Objects which flatter our senses ; beauties 
which gladden our imaginations; above 
all, sentiments which transport our souls 
— the sublime exertions of generosity, of 
virtue — the sweet aflections of friendship, 
of humanity, of patriotism — all unite to 
render us happy, and attach us to this 
world. Yet it is not our country ; it is 
only a place of passage, only a vestibule 
to lead us to our true dwelling. For 
what is it destined ? Not to engross our 
affections ; but to instruct us, to prepare 
our souls for enjoyments of a nobler or- 
der, to render them fit for a purer happi- 
ness. If, however, it is so magnificent, 
what must be the beauties of the home 



THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 13 

to which we tend; what must be the joys 
which are in reserve for us ; what must 
be the transports which are prepared for 
our hearts in that place of perfection 
where God himself dwells 7 But we think 
not of it, we forget it ; yes, that world of 
• felicity, the road to which Jesus has marked 
and trod, which God oifers as the recom- 
Ipense of virtue, and the conquest of which 
ought to be the great end of our hfe, ex- 
cites but feebly our desires, and kindles 
but slightly our ambition. The flowers 
that we meet in the road of life cause us 
to lose sight of this grand object : dazzled 
by brilliant trifles, we retard our progress 
towards solid good ; we say with Peter, 
^^ It is good for us to be here ; let us make 
ourselves tents;" we grow attached to 
earth ; the idea of leaving it fills us with 
alarm. Fools that we are ! such is our 
love for this world, that we should be 
satisfied never to leave it ; that we should 
consent to exchange what is every thing 
for what is nothing; that ocean of fe- 
licity for a few pleasures of little value ! 
2 



14 THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 

But God, who sees our blindness, pities 
us ; mingles bitterness with the sweets of 
this life ; takes from us the coveted good, 
when we are on the point of seizing it — 
the objects of our affections, in the mo- 
ment when we think our possession sure. 
This man had placed his heart on riches ; 
God snatches them away : another, on a 
beloved child; God smites it in its fa- 
ther's embrace. One lived only for friend- 
ship — lived by the attachment of those to 
whom he was ever doing good ; and God 
allows his revvrard to be treachery and in- 
gratitude. Another longed for glory ; in- 
stead he gives him disgrace. Under these 
blows the soul is broken down ; for a 
time it is unable to recover from its griefs ; 
it feels an immense void ; a deep melan- 
choly consumes it ; on every side it search- 
es for consolation ; finding none, it turns 
upon itself What terrible blows have 
struck my heart ! the Christian exclaims : 
how gloomy this world appears ! What 
folly to fix my heart upon it ! It is fill- 
ed only with unreal objects. I stretch 



THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 15 

out my hand to seize riches, they fly 
away ; I open my arms to embrace my 
child, he is gone ; I have exhausted the 
cup of hfe, there remains but bitter dregs. 
All my property, all my friends, all that I 
loved, abandons me. O, my God and 
Father ! the reason is, thou wishest to 
draw me to thyself : thou snatchest away 
perishable good, because thou wishest to 
secure for me permanent good ; thou dis- 
appointest my affections, that I may di- 
rect them on him who will never deceive ; 
thou takest its brightness from the splen- 
dor of the world ; thou renderest its plea- 
sures tasteless ; thou causest me to find 
pain in what constituted my happiness. 
Ah ! the reason is, thou wishest to turn my 
view toward those happy shores ; to seek, 
to covet, to lay hold on that life, in which 
are found real joys, supreme beauty, true 
riches ; thou callest me from the heavens ; 
thou encouragest me to take my flight to 
those happy mansions, to follow those 
whom my heart loves. I hear thy voice, 
tender Father ; I yield to thy invitations ; 



16 THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 

I desire to depart hence and be with 
Christ. 

Thus, then, those afflictions which we 
dreaded, and of which we complained, may 
produce the most happy consequences. 
Yes, ^^ it is good for us to be afflicted." If 
we hved always in prosperity, we should 
never enter into our own breasts, and 
should therefore remain ignorant of our 
sins; inordinate pride would inflate our 
hearts ; we should be so attached to the 
earth and its miserable pleasures, as to de- 
sire never to quit them. But adversity 
awakens our soul by its salutary shocks; it 
dissipates that charm which embellishes, in 
our eyes, the deformity of our conduct ; it 
prostrates our pride, and detaches us from 
the false good of this world, to make us as- 
pire to that which is unalloyed with pain, 
and which will be unlimited in duration. 
The remedy is bitter, the operation is 
painful, but it is necessary for our salva- 
tion. ^^ Chastisement," says Paul, ^^ is 
for the present not joyous, but grievous ; 
nevertheless, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit 



THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 17 

of righteousness to them who are exercised 
thereby." A child weeps, rebels, because 
his father subjects him to a severe disci- 
pline, and makes him undergo the toil of 
study : he does not foresee the advan- 
tages which will subsequently accrue to 
him. We, in the same way, dread afflic- 
tions, weep, rebel, despair, when God 
makes them our portion. Why ? We do 
not know all the good that they are fitted 
to communicate; we do not know how 
many evils they cause us to avoid, how 
much happiness they will produce. But 
a day is coming when we shall know it, 
when we shall congratulate ourselves on 
our exposure to sorrow, when we shall 
bless our Heavenly Father for the way 
in which he led us to himself As a 
traveller, arrived at his beloved home, 
feels a pleasure in retracing in his mind 
and recounting in his family the woes he 
has felt, the dangers he has run, the mis- 
chances he has experienced, so we, ar- 
rived in our heavenly country, shall con- 
template with ravishment all the pains 
2# 



18 THE GOOD OF AFFLICTION. 

we underwent on the journey of life; 
shall dwell with satisfaction on the cross- 
es we have found ; be filled with surprise 
in discovering the wise designs of Provi- 
dence in our afiiictions, and the number- 
less benefits which have resulted from 
them. We, who know and feel the truth 
of these assertions, will never tire in 
blessing our Father, in adoring him for 
all he has done for us ; especially for 
those trials which, in spite of our tears, 
our cries, our murmurs, he has caused us 
to experience. 

O tender Father, who ceasest not to be 
occupied with our happiness, and who, by 
ways to us unknown, conductest us to a 
felicity far above all our thoughts ; par- 
don the doubts, the complaints, that we 
sometimes allow to escape from our lips 
against thy wise and benignant dispensa- 
tions. Thou knowest we are feeble and 
ignorant. Our ways are not thy ways, 
we acknowledge at this holy hour. And 
forever do we abjure our murmurs, lay 
aside our distrust, place ourselves under 



THE MOURNER COMFORTED. 19 

thy guidance. Whatever thou decidest, 
we will submit, adore, and have no other 
care but to please thee, by observing thy 
holy will. 



THE MOURNER COMFORTED. 

" Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall find 
Comfort and joy !" Though flesh and blood rebel 
'Gainst heaven-ward thoughts, and the vext spirit 
swell 

With anxious tossings, still, the veil behind 

Of earth-born mists, the faith-directed mind 
Sees throned in cloudless light the Invisible, 
At whose right hand delights in fullness dwell, 

And bliss forever lasting. Be resigned. 

Thou child of sorrow, to his sovereign wdll ; 
Drink, as he bids, the bitter cup, and bear 

Thy cross in patience ! From the holy hill 

A gleam shall cheer thee, till, safe-harbored there, 

Thou feel how faintly earth's severest ill 
May with the weight of heavenly joys compare. 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 



Christianity was designed to introduce 
into the world new vieAvs and feelings 
concerning death. We seem to see its 
character and office typified in the visit 
of Jesus to the house of Mary and Mar- 
tha, on occasion of the death of their bro- 
ther. It was a house of affliction. Wail- 
ing and lamentation were heard in it, as 
they are, at one time or another, in all 
the dwellings of this world. But our 
blessed Savior approached it in a calm 
consciousness that he was commissioned 
with a doctrine and clothed with a power 
that would triumph over death; that 
death, in fact, was not the end nor the 
interruption of existence ; that death in- 
deed was only death in appearance, Avhile 
in reality the spirit's life is progressive, 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 21 

ever continued, immortal. What less do 
his words import than the annunciation 
to the world of this new view of mortali- 
ty ? "I am the resurrection and the life : 
he that believeth in me, though he were 
dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever 
liveth and believeth in me, shall never 
die" — shall die not, at all, forever ! The 
apostles, in like manner, evidently con- 
sidered themselves as commissioned to 
teach new views of death. They taught 
the Christian converts to '^ sorrow not as 
others who had no hope." They repre- 
sented the coming of Christ as designed 
to ''deliver those who through fear of 
death were all their lifetime subject to 
bondage." 

Christianity, we repeat, was designed 
to introduce into the world new views of 
death and futurity. But in this, as in 
several other respects, we apprehend that 
it has made as yet but a feeble impression 
upon the mass of those who have received 
it. They have not yet partaken of the 
cheerfulness, tranquillity, and triumph of 



22 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

him who ^^ has aboHshed death, and 
brought hfe and immortahty to hght in 
the gospel." They have not so '^ hved 
and beheved" in Jesus as triumphantly 
to feel that they '' shall never die !'' There 
is more, we are tempted to say, of heathen 
despondency and dread among us, than 
of christian hope and trust. 

We shall speak of this subject not 
without solemnity and the tenderness due 
to a theme so affecting — of these we can 
scarcely fail — but we shall not speak of it 
with an awe that forbids us to reason up- 
on it. We shall speak of death as those 
who, God helping, do not fear it with any 
excessive and unreasonable dread. We 
believe that it is the great course of na- 
ture, the appointment of God, a wise and 
good appointment, and that it is to be met 
with pious submission, calmness, and 
trust. We believe in One, who has de- 
stroyed ^^ the power of death;" who has 
come to deliver us from this very fear 
that has struck so deep a horror into the 
world, who has unfolded to us the bright 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 23 

and exalting hope of an endless and bless- 
ed life. 

The dread which is felt of this event 
has manifested itself in many popular 
impressions of the most erroneous and in- 
defensible, as well as painful, character. 

There prevails an erroneous or an ex- 
aggerated idea of many of the circum- 
stances that attend the dying hour. 

In particular, it is thought that this 
final event passes with some dreadful 
visitation of unknown agony over the de- 
parting suiferer. It is imagined that there 
is some strange and mysterious reluctance 
in the spirit to leave the body; that it 
struggles long to retain its hold, and is at 
last torn with violence from its mortal 
tenement ; and in fine, that this conflict 
between the soul and the body greatly 
adds to the pangs of dissolution. But it 
may be justly presumed, from what usual- 
ly appears, that there is no particular nor 
acute suffering; not more than is often 
experienced in life ; nay, rather, that 
there is less, because the very powers of 



24 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

suffering are enfeebled, the very capaci- 
ties of pain are nearly exhausted. Death 
is to be regarded rather as a sleep than an 
acute sensation, as a suspension rather 
than a conflict of our faculties. Our Sa- 
vior once said in relation to this event, 
'^ Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." The mar- 
tyr Stephen, we are told, ^' fell asleep," 
though he died amidst the blows and 
shouts of murderers. And the Scripture 
denominates the pious dead, ^' those who 
sleep in Jesus." Death is the sleep of the 
weary. It is repose, the body's repose, 
after the busy and toilsome day of life. 

We have all witnessed perhaps the 
progress of this change ; and what was 
it ? Let our senses and our understand- 
ing answer ; and not our imagination. 
What was it, but gradually diminishing 
strength, feeble utterance, failing percep- 
tion, and total insensibility ? The change, 
as it passed before us, may have been at- 
tended with accidental circumstances of 
mental experience or bodily sensation; 
but the change itself, death considered as 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 25 

an event, was only a gradual decline and 
extinction of the powers of life. This is 
all which we saw, or could know, as ne- 
cessarily belonging to this crisis in the 
progress of our being. And yet, from this 
ignorance, we allow ourselves to be 
troubled by the phantoms of agitating 
conjecture. We imagine, and indeed it is 
common to say, that because '^ no one has 
returned to tell us what it is to die," there 
must be some mysterious and peculiar 
sensation, some awful physical experience 
attending it. But we see nothing, we see 
indications of nothing, and we ought not 
to presume any thing of this nature. 

Neither are we to presume that death 
arouses the mind, in the last moments of 
its earthly existence, to the keenest atten- 
tion, or to the most intense action of its 
powers. The subject, when distinctly 
contemplated beforehand, may do so ; it 
may often do so in the midst of life ; and 
well were it, if it far more frequently 
aroused us to do in season the work of 
life. All we wish to say is, — and we wish 
3 



26 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

to say it to preclude all appeals at once to 
mysterious fear and unfounded hope — that 
there is no pecuHar, no fearful nor hope- 
ful activity of mind amidst the solemni- 
ties of dissolution; that, in most cases, 
there is no activity. It is probable, that 
the exhausted faculties usually sink to 
their mortal repose, as they do to nightly 
sleep ; and that the convulsive struggles 
which are sometimes witnessed, are often 
as unconscious as those with which we 
sink to the slumbers of evening rest. 

Nor, when the veil of delirium is spread 
over the mortal hour, can Ave regard it as 
the evil that it is often thought to be. It 
has seemed to us rather, in many cases, 
as a friendly veil, drawn by the hand of 
nature over what would otherwise be the 
agonies of separation, over the anguish 
that the parent would feel at leaving chil- 
dren orphans and destitute, or that the 
friend would feel in saying farewell to 
those who were dearest upon earth. De- 
lirium often interposes, we believe, by the 
kind providence of God, where nature 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 27 

would be too weak, or faith too infirm for 
the trial. 

Nor yet is there any thing but fancy in 
what is sometimes said of the loneliness 
of the last hour. To the selfish and the 
bad, and in proportion as they possess this 
character, there is indeed solitude in 
death, and it may then be doubly felt. 
But to them there is solitude also in life ; 
solitude in the chamber of sickness, in 
the hour of retired meditation, nay, and it 
is oftentimes deeply felt in the throng of 
society. If we deserve to have friends, 
they are with us in death as truly as in 
life ; so long as we are conscious of any 
thing earthly, Ave are conscious of their 
presence. It may sustain and soothe us, 
till the last moment of our stay on earth. 
^^ I walked with her," — said one who laid 
down the remains of a beloved companion 
in a distant land — ^^ I Avalked with her 
down the valley of shadows ; I wiped the 
cold damps of death from her forehead ; 
and saw her ascend to the mansions of 
the blessed !" 



28 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

But we must hasten briefly to consider 
some of the errors that relate, not to the 
circumstances, but to the nature, the es- 
sential character of this solemn event. 

When our Savior says, " He that liveth 
and belie veth in me shall never die," he 
adds, '^ believest thou this?" The ques- 
tion might still be put to multitudes even 
in a Christian land, and; we doubt not, 
with the strongest implication of their un- 
belief They do not believe it. Death is 
regarded as the extinction, rather than as 
the continuance of being. Whatever the 
words of our theology may say, the real 
impression upon most minds is, that death 
sunders almost all the ties that united us 
to our former existence ; that it changes 
not only our state, but our nature ; that 
the soul, as it travels to the ^' undiscover- 
ed country," is passing beyond the bor- 
ders of all that it has known, and sought, 
and valued. We are apt to feel as if on 
the passage from life we parted with all 
that our thoughts had familiarized and 
our affections cherished. But is not this 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 29 

an error ? We take with us — so to speak 
— our thinking and conscious selves ; and 
it is no vanity, but a simple truth, to say, 
in a very important sense, that ourself 
is our all ; for it embraces all our men- 
tal acquisitions and attachments, our 
joys and hopes, our attainments of piety, 
our treasures of knowledge, all elevated 
and holy contemplations that we may 
have indulged in, all our habits of thought 
and feeling that are estimable and pure, 
all that is precious in happiness, all that 
is sacred in memory ; and the record of 
all this death will not erase, but will only 
impress upon it the seal of perpetuity. It 
has not erased these things, we may be- 
lieve, from the venerated and pious minds 
that have gone before us. The dead, — 
the departed, should we rather say, — are 
connected with us by more than the ties 
of memory. The love that on earth 
yearned towards us is not dead ; the kind- 
ness that gladdened us is not dead ; the 
sympathy that bound itself with our 

fortunes is not dead, nor has it lost its 
3# 



30 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

fervor, surely, in the pity of an angel. 
No ; if our Christian guides speak truly, 
it still yearns towards us, it would still 
gladden us. It still melts in tenderness 
over our sorrows. The world of spirits — 
we know not where it is, whether far or 
near ; but it may as well, for all that we 
can understand, be near to us, as far 
distant; and in that fervent love, which 
knows nothing of change or distance or 
distinction, it is forever near us. Our 
friend, if he be the same and not another 
being — our friend, in whatever world, in 
whatever sphere, is still our friend. The 
ties of every virtuous union are, like the 
virtue which cements them, like the af- 
fections of angels, like the love of God 
which binds them to the eternal throne, 
immortal. 

The evil of making this wide separa- 
tion, this violent disruption of the present 
from the future, as well as of other pre- 
vailing views of death, is in many ways 
great. Our thoughts do not easily pass 
to live in the future, or to draw from it 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 31 

the motives of action. Our theological 
views of this subject, our contemplations 
of futurity, are too much like the ancient 
poetic dreams of an Elysian land and a 
Tartarean region, visionary and ineffectu- 
al. There is a fearful retribution, there 
is a sublime beatitude, we admit ; but 
our conceptions of both are vague and un- 
real; and our fear does not deter us from 
sin, and our hope does not allure us to 
purity and heaven. Between us and our 
futur recompense we look upon death as 
*' a great gulf fixed,'' and it cuts off the 
communication of our thoughts. Between 
the good and the bad a great gulf is fixed 
indeed, but not between us and the de- 
parted. Death is not that gulf; yet we 
so regard it. We do not sufficiently con- 
sider it as a stage, a necessary stage in 
the progress of being ; as a natural pas- 
sage from the childhood to the maturity 
of our existence. We are deterred too 
from the thoughts of futurity by the ima- 
ginary glooms and mysteries of the en- 
trance to it. Even the most attractive 



32 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

ideas of a future life, even a spiritual 
relish for its joys, and a conscience free 
from alarms, could scarcely overcome our 
reluctance to so fearful and dismal an ap- 
proach to it. We could hardly think of 
home, or welcome the prospect of admis- 
sion there, if we must pass to it through 
unknown conflicts and woes, if Ave could 
reach it only by braving the horrors of 
shipwreck, if we could gain its threshold 
only by rushing over the burning ruins 
of a conflagration. 

Again ; death is commonly regarded as 
the visitation of God's wrath, as the fruit 
and punishment of sin. We do not for- 
get the language of Scripture on this sub- 
ject ; that '^ death entered into the world 
by sin, and so death passed upon all men, 
for that all have sinned." It is to be re- 
membered, however, that in many pas- 
sages where death is said to be the fruit 
of sin the word death is used figuratively ; 
that mortality is not meant, but misery. 
This may be seen in the whole of that 
account which is given of Paul's experi- 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 33 

ence and reasonings in the seventh and 
eighth chapters of the Epistle to the Ro- 
mans ; and in other instances. And upon 
the text before quoted it has been justly- 
argued, that the death which '' entered by 
sin" is not the specific calamity of being 
mortal, but all the evil brought upon us 
by sin, including whatever is evil in 
mortahty itself That all this is meant 
by the word death, we say, has been 
argued from the circumstance, that it is 
set in contrast with all the benefits de- 
rived from the interposition of our Savior. 
As these benefits include more than mere 
continuance of life, so, it is contended, the 
contrasted evil which sin is said to intro- 
duce cannot be death to the body merely, 
but rather death to the soul; that is, 
misery, fear, disquietude and gloom. 
And it might be still more strongly urged, 
with reference to this point, that, if mor- 
tality were the specific and only evil 
meant in that passage, it is said to be re- 
moved by the interposition of our Savior. 
This is the very point which we are la- 



34 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

boring to establish. Jesus Christ ^^has 
abohshed death, and brought hfe and im- 
mortaUty to hght in the gospel." He has 
presented new views of mortahty. He 
has taught us, that it is the death of the 
body only ; that the good man, that the 
spirit of goodness which is in him, that 
the intrinsic and intellectual being, '' shall 
never die." 

We are not however anxious to deny, 
for it is obviously true, that sin has given 
a complexion to this event ; that it has, to 
a certain extent, connected pain, and 
doubt, and gloom with mortality. In 
some respects we can see this influence. 
Sin, which partly consists in the undue 
indulgence of the body, has made all our 
diseases more severe and painful. Sin 
too has clouded and darkened the mind, 
and filled it with inquietude and fear. 
Sin then, we repeat, has given a complex- 
ion to this event. It has made our de- 
parture from this world, not a translation, 
but a death. 

Yet surely the departure, simply con- 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 35 

sidered, is not to be regarded as an or- 
dination of God's wrath, but of his inJSnite 
goodness. Whatever is universal and un- 
avoidable must always be held to be good. 
Sin only, the choice of man, is essentially 
evil. Events, laws, the ordinances of 
God, are ever good. When we approach 
the dwelling where death has entered, 
when we join the circle of mourning 
friends and kindred over which the mor- 
tal stroke has just brought its stupefying 
horror or its heart-rending agony, when 
that solemn silence, that dread vacuity 
of death is around us, broken only by the 
sighs and shudderings of grief and des- 
pair, we are apt at first to feel as if we 
stood in some awful chasm where God is 
not, or in some overshadowing cloud 
where he is present only in displeasure. 
But when we remember that this is the 
inevitable lot, that there are thousands 
of such scenes passing every hour on 
earth, ten thousand human hearts rent 
with like sorrow, we are ready to ask — 
Can this universal fate be otherwise than 



36 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

an ordination of wisdom and goodness ? 
Can the unvarying allotment, to which all 
the children of God are subject, be vin- 
dictive? Can that which befalls all 
earthly beings, fills all time, and spreads 
before the eye of Heaven such an unin- 
terrupted scene — can it be a signal mea- 
sure of God's wrath 7 The catastrophe, 
in the darkest view of it, would not be so 
horrible as the supposition which thus 
explains it. 

Besides, a dissolution of the body, and 
a departure from this world, result from 
the very nature and necessity of things. 
The human frame is not made to live 
always, and the earth as evidently was 
not designed to support the accumulating 
generations of mankind. Nay, more ; 
departure at some time or other from this 
life, so far from being a penal requisition, 
must to every reflecting mind appear in 
the highest degree desirable. Let the 
question be put to our calmer and loftier 
reflections, and there can be no other 
answer. Would we live always 1 Would 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 37 

we always bear the burden of imperfec- 
tion and infirmity? Would we always 
pant for knowledge and happiness that we 
cannot attain ; and shall we ever cling to 
that load of flesh, and of all the ills that 
flesh is heir to, which drags us down to the 
earth? No; we would die; we would 
depart ; we would be released and be at 
rest. We might desire to mount on the 
winged chariot of Ehjah; but it has 
pleased God to appoint for us a diflerent 
way. Be it so, that it is for our sins, or 
that our sins have cast a shadow over the 
passage out of this world ; shall we not 
then the more humbly and submissively 
yield ourselves to it ? — not with terror, not 
with slavish dread, for God does not 
chasten, even for our sins, in unpitying 
wrath, but in tender mercy. 

We would not then live always. Earth 
could not bear us. Humanity could not 
bear its load. Still more ; the mind could 
not be satisfied. It would ask for other 
scenes, for other regions, for other sources 
of knowledge, for other fountains of joy. 
4 



38 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

We would depart, then; and this is but 
saying thai we would die. We must 
yield our powers to the sleep of death, 
that we may awake to a new life. We 
must change the form and mode of our 
existence, that we may exist in a higher 
sphere. We must cease to live as men, 
that we may begin to live as angels. The 
unsightly worm must sink to inaction 
and death, that it may rise from its gro- 
velling in the dust, that it may become an 
inhabitant of the air, that it may unfold 
its wings in a new region, and become the 
creature of life and beauty that God de- 
signed it to be. The soul in like manner 
must drop its '^ mortal coil," that the now 
undeveloped, the half dormant powers, 
that mysteriously sleep within it, may 
awake to their own intellectual and im- 
mortal life. It may be as unconscious 
now of what it is hereafter to become, as 
the reptile that crawls upon the earth is 
of rising to the air and light of heaven. 
The transformation may be as great, and 
as much more glorious, as intellect is more 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 39 

glorious than dark and blind instinct. 
Nor may death be the soul's last trans- 
formation. ^' There shall be no more 
death," indeed; but there maybe many 
changes in its mode of being, while it is 
passing from glory to glory, through its 
everlasting progress. 

But we must not delay longer to con- 
sider some of those views of death, which 
are indeed more just than those already 
noticed, but which nevertheless are liable 
to be wrested into error, through the ex- 
cessive dread which is entertained of this 
event. Mortality is not the interruption 
of being, nor is it any peculiar visitation 
of God's wrath; but it is still a serious 
crisis in our existence ; and our views of 
it are not likely to be too serious, if we 
will only guard our seriousness from su- 
perstition, and from all irrational and ex- 
travagant influences of the imagination. 

Death is a serious event, inasmuch as 
we are taught that ^^ after death is the 
judgment." Men may do Avrong now, 
and boast of it, may purpose evil and 



40 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

glory in its accomplishment, may oppress 
and injure, and silence the voice of re- 
monstrance ; but an hour of unveiled 
retribution is approaching them ; the time 
is near when every evil gratification and 
unjust deed shall become a piercing arrow 
of conviction. Forms, appearances, shall 
soon give place to realities; the body's 
enslaving control, to the spirit's action 
and life ; and passion, indulgence, sin, to 
the manifested and the no longer mistaken 
judgment of Heaven. 

Still however, solemn and justly solemn 
as this view of death and of the revelation 
of a future life is, it is possible to lay too 
great, or at least too exclusive, a stress 
upon that event which is to unfold to us 
those revelations. Every future moment 
— not that of death only, not that of the 
judgment which is immediately to follow 
— but every future moment of our being 
is to answer for every present moment. 
This is the great law of retribution. None 
less strict, or less severe, belongs to our 
moral nature. And it does not apply to 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 41 

the future life only, but equally to the 
present; and all the difference is, that it 
is now less clearly seen and felt. And it 
does not apply to any one epoch alone, 
but to all the periods, to all the moments 
of our endless being. It is not death then 
that we should fear, but the eternal retri- 
bution of conscience. It is not at the 
moment of death that we should tremble, 
but at every moment of the future that is 
to answer for the neglects, and errors, and 
offences of the misspent past. Virtue is 
deathless. It is more ; it is blessed life. 
On the ''path of the just, that shineth 
brighter and brighter,'' no shadow abideth. 
The shade of death itself but opens the 
way to a brighter and more glorious ex- 
istence. 

Again; death is the separation of friends. 
And we are not of those who can speak 
lightly of this separation. We have heard 
of some who were able to lift up a radiant 
and almost smiling countenance over the 
earthly remains of all that was dearest on 

earth ; but it enters not into our conception 

4# 



42 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

to regard it as any thing but extravagance 
and enthusiasm. We do not take upon 
us to set hmits to the support which God 
may give to bereaved friendship or afflict- 
ed piety ; but that triumph in the counte- 
nance, surely, is not their fit demeanor. 
No ; the sundering stroke of death is stern, 
and cold, and bitter reality. 

We have sometimes ventured to won- 
der, and that in the more fervent medita- 
tion upon God's goodness, why the trial 
is made so severe, and for a time so al- 
most inconsolable. Could one glimpse, 
we have been ready to say, could one 
glimpse of the future world be opened to 
us, could the situation of the departed for 
one moment be made known to us ; or 
might it have been the order of Providence 
that families should be removed at once 
and together to the ^' spirit land" — but re- 
flection and faith have soon arisen to 
check the remonstrances and questionings 
of anxious and yearning affection, and 
have soon shown, as they usually do, that 
God's providence is wiser than our own 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 43 

hasty presumption. Were families re- 
moved together, how certainly would our 
social affections gather up and concen- 
trate themselves upon those narrow cir- 
cles ; and all the evils — the peculiarities, 
the prejudices, the selfish and exclusive 
attachments — of that limited intercourse, 
to which we are already sufficiently liable, 
would be inflicted on society ; and all the 
benefits of a wide and generous diffusion 
and reciprocation of sentiments and feel- 
ings would be cut off from the social body. 
If, again, the future world were opened to 
us, it might produce in us an utter dis- 
taste to this ; it might disturb the well 
balanced and wisely ordered influences, 
under which we were made to act in the 
present state. If we could see, what we 
so ardently long to behold, beyond this 
veil of earthly shadows, we might have no 
eyes for the scene around us; we might 
be rapt in meditation, when we are called 
to the action and trial of all our virtues. 

It was evidently designed, that we 
should be trained up here, by a severe 



44 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

and lofty discipline, for some glorious 
state of being and enjoyment hereafter. 
The moral economy under which we are 
placed, the spiritual life on earth, was not 
designed to be vision, but faith, — not rap- 
ture, but trial. The departure of friends 
and kindred to another world irresistibly 
draws our thoughts thither, and constant- 
ly renders us more indifferent to acquisi- 
tions and objects here. Heaven claims 
our treasures, that our hearts may be 
there also. Faith, moreover, in the in- 
visible, the spiritual, the eternal, is the 
appropriate faith of beings whose welfare 
lies in the invisible mind, whose nature is 
spiritual, and whose destiny immortal. 
It is meet that we should be trained by 
the influences of a world which we see 
not, and from which no sound reaches us. 
It is our happiness, also, not only to love 
God, but to love him with the fervor and 
assurance of perfect trust. Love is ever 
doubtful, without that trial — and it is but 
an impassioned feeling without that qua- 
lity — of absolute confidence. 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 45 

Yet a little while therefore are we re- 
quired to wait, till we can behold those 
objects and those beings on whom, next 
to God, it is right that our hearts should 
be set. The interval will not be too long 
for the trial of our faith, and the prepara- 
tion of all our virtues; not too long to 
prepare us for the blessedness of a future 
life ; nay, it may not be found too long to 
prepare us to die^ as the Christian should 
die. To meet the last hour calmly, to 
resign all the objects which our senses 
have made familiar and dear, in the lofty 
expectation of better things for the mind, 
is itself a great act of faith, and one for 
which many days' reflection and experi- 
ence may not be too much to prepare us. 
To take our last look at the countenances 
of beloved friends and companions ; to 
close our eyes to the bright vision of 
nature ; to bid adieu to earth, sky, waters ; 
to feel, for the last time, the thrill of rap- 
ture with which this fair and glorious 
scene of things has so often touched the 
soul — this is an hour for faith unshaken 



46 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

in the immortality of virtue, and for trust 
unbounded in the love of God, and for the 
triumphant assurance which long tried 
and lofty experience alone can give. The 
feelings of the infidel Rousseau have 
seemed to us thus far natural, and such 
as even a Christian may entertain. When 
he apprehended that his last hour drew 
near, he desired the windows of his apart- 
ment to be opened, that he might ''have 
the pleasure," as he said, " of beholding 
nature once more. How lovely she is !'^ 
he exclaimed; "how pure and serene is 
the day ! O Nature ! thou art grand in- 
deed!" Yet not as Rousseau died does 
the Christian die; but with a better trust. 
And with that trust, with a firm confi- 
dence in the perpetuity of all pious and 
virtuous friendships, there is much, sure- 
ly, to mitigate the pain of a temporary 
separation. Let us remember, too, that we 
do submit to frequent separations in this 
life, that our friends wander from us over 
trackless waters and to far distant conti- 
nentSj and that we are still happy in the 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 47 

assurance that they live. And though, by 
the same providence of God that has 
guarded them here, they are called to pass 
beyond the visible precincts of this present 
existence, let us feel that they still hve. 
God's universe is not explored when we 
have surveyed islands, and oceans, and 
the shores of earth's spreading continents* 
There are other regions, where the foot- 
steps of the happy and immortal are 
treading the paths of life. Would we call 
them back to these abodes of infirmity and 
sin? Would we involve them again in 
these toils, and pains, and temptations? 
Or shall we sorrow for them as those 
who have no hope? No; we would 
rather go and die with them. What do 
we say? We will rather go and live 
with them forever ! 

But, the awful entrance to the world 
of spirits — may still be our exclamation — 
how dark and desolate is that passage ! It 
is a fearful thing to die. Nature abhors 
dissolution. 

Let something of this be admitted, but 



48 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

let it not be too much. Does nature ab- 
hor dissolution? Behold the signs of 
decay and dissolution which the season 
now spreads around us. Behold nature 
in her annual death — the precursor of 
renovated life. But we will not argue 
from emblems. We will admit that a 
living being must naturally dread to part 
with life. But he dreads to part with 
life, only in a greater measure, as he 
dreads to part with every thing that is 
his. He is averse to the loss of property, 
and in some instances almost as much so 
as to the loss of life itself He is reluc- 
tant to part with any one of his senses; 
and this reluctance, compared with the 
natural dread of death, is in full propor- 
tion to the value of that organ. Let us 
rationally look at the subject in this light. 
Doubtless we dread the loss of the sense 
of hearing, for instance; and, when that 
is entirely gone from us, hearing is dead. 
We dread the loss of sight ; and, that light 
extinguished, seeing is dead. Thus one 
faculty after another departs from us, and 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 49 

death is at work within us, while we say 
that we are in the midst of hfe. So let us 
regard it. So let us familiarize to our 
minds the thoughts of death, and feel that 
this dreaded enemy, dreaded partly be- 
cause imagined to be so distant and un- 
known, has already made its lodgment in 
our frame, and by familiar processes is 
approaching the citadel of life. As dis- 
ease is making its inroads upon us and 
the system is wearing out, as the acute- 
ness of sensation is failing us, and the 
vigor of bone and muscle is dechning, let 
us say and feel, that we are gradually 
approaching the extinction of this animal 
life. Let no sceptic doubts, let no thoughts 
of annihilation mingle with our apprehen- 
sions of mortality ; let us believe as Chris- 
tians, that not the soul, but only the body 
dies — and death cannot be that dread and 
abhorrence of nature which we make it. 

We would dwell upon this point a mo- 
ment longer — ^the natural dread of death. 
It seems to us strange, it seems as if all 

were wrong, in a world, where from the 
5 



50 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

very constitution of things death must 
close every scene of human hfe, where it 
has reigned for ages over all generations, 
where the very air we breathe and the 
dust we tread upon was once animated 
life — it seems to us most strange and 
wrong, that this most common, necessary, 
expedient, and certain of all events should 
bring such horror and desolation with it; 
that it should bring such tremendous 
agitation, as if it were some awful and 
unprecedented phenomenon ; that it should 
be more than death — a shock, a catastro- 
phe, a convulsion ; as if nature, instead 
of holding on its steady course, were fall- 
ing into irretrievable ruins. 

And that which is strange, is our 
strangeness to this event. Call sickness, 
call pain, an approach to death. Call the 
weariness and failure of the limbs and 
senses, call decay, a dying. It is so; it 
is a gradual loosening of the cords of life, 
and a breaking up of its reservoirs and 
resources. So shall they all, one and 
another in succession, give way. ''I 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 51 

feel" — will the thoughtful man say — ^^ I 
feel the pang of suffering, as it were, pierc- 
ing and cutting asunder, one by one, the 
fine and invisible bonds that hold me to 
the earth. I feel the gushing current of 
life within me to be wearing away its 
own channels. I feel the sharpness of 
every keen emotion and of every acute 
and far-penetrating thought, as if it were 
shortening the moments of the soul's con- 
nexion and conflict with the body." So 
it is, and so shall it be, till at last ^^ the 
silver cord is loosened, and the golden 
bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken 
at the fountain, and the wheel is broken 
at the cistern, and the dust returns to the 
earth as it was, and the spirit returns unto 
God who gave it." 

No; it is not a strange dispensation. 
Death is the felloAV of all that is earthly ; 
the friend of man alone. It is not an 
anomaly ; it is not a monster in the crea- 
tion. It is the law and the lot of nature. 

" Not to thy eternal resting-place 
Shalt thou retire alone. # # # 



52 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings, 
The powerful of the earth, the wise and good, 
Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past, 
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills, 
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun j the vales, 
Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
The venerable woods, rivers that move 
In majesty, and the complaining brooks, 
That make the meadows green, and, poured round all, 
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste — 
Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man." 

But of what is it the tomb ? Does the 
spirit die ? Do the blessed affections of 
the soul go down into the dark and silent 
grave? Oh! no. '^ The narrow house, 
and pall, and breathless darkness" and 
funereal train — these belong not to the 
soul. They proclaim only the body's dis- 
solution. They but celebrate the vanish- 
ing away of the shadow of existence. 
Man does not die, though the forms of 
popular speech thus announce his exit. 
He does not die. We bury, not our 
friend, but only the form, the vehicle in 
which for a time our friend lived.; That 



ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 53 

cold, impassive clay is not the friend, the 
parent, the child, the companion, the 
cherished being. No, it is not : blessed 
be God, that we can say. It is not! It is 
the materia] mould only that earth claims. 
It is ''dust," only, that ''descends to 
dust.'' The grave ! let us break its aw- 
ful spell, its dread dominion. It is the 
place where man lays down his weakness, 
his infirmity, his diseases and sorrows, 
that he may rise up to a new and glorious 
life. It is the place where man ceases — 
in all that is frail and decaying — ceases 
to be man, that he may be, in glory and 
blessedness, an angel of light ! ; 

Why, then, should we fear death, save 
as the wicked fear, and must fear it? 
Why dread to lay down this frail body in 
its resting-place, and this weary, aching 
head on the pillow of its repose ? Why 
tremble at this — that in the long sleep of 
the tomb that body shall suffer disease 
no more, and pain no more, and hear no 
more the cries of want nor the groans of 
distress — and, far retired from the tur- 



54 ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH. 

moil of life, that violence and change 
shall pass lightly over it, and the ele- 
ments shall beat and the storms shall 
sigh miheard around its lowly bed ? Say, 
ye aged and infirm ! is it the greatest of 
evils to die ? Say, ye children of care and 
toil ! say, ye afflicted and tempted ! is it 
the greatest of evils to die ? 

Oh ! no. Come the last hour, in God's 
own time ! — and a good life and a glorious 
hope shall make it welcome. Come the 
hour of release ! — and affliction shall make 
it welcome. Come the hour of reunion 
with the loved and lost on earth ! — and 
the passionate yearnings of affection, and 
the strong aspiration of faith, shall bear 
us to their blessed land. Come death to 
this body — this burdened, tempted, frail, 
failing, dying body ! — and to the soul, — 
thanks be to God who giveth us the vic- 
tory, — to the soul come freedom, light and 
joy unceasing ! come the immortal life t 
''He that liveth" — saith the Conqueror 
over death — '' he that liveth and belie veth 
in me shall never die !" 



55 



THE DEPARTED. 



The friends we love have passed away j 
The forms so dear no more we see j 

No more we meet the eye's mild ray, 
Or catch the smile of sympathy. 

No — these are fled j but ask thy heart, 
Are no fond traces lingering there, — 

Memories we would not bid depart, 

And hopes that bless our hour of prayer ? 

Is not the dream of heaven more sweet. 
Bright with the living forms of love? 

Does not each trial that we meet 
Raise our rapt spirits more above ? 

Yes ! death, that pales our curdling cheek, 
Tells of an angel's opening bliss — 

Again we view the form we seek. 
Bright with immortal happiness. 

For faith delighted views that scene 
Of fadeless glory and of grace, 

Forgets the years that intervene. 
And bids us see them " face to face.-' 



66 THE DEPARTED. 

What though a few brief ills of life, 
A little pathway marked with tears, 

Some struggles of the Christian strife 
Await us in those future years ; — 

Soon, soon they pass ; and even now 
Those angel forms may guard our way, 

Weave the blest chaplet for our brow, 
And guide our footsteps lest they stray. 

In every thought to heaven allied, 
In every virtuous deed and aim. 

Are the departed at our side. 

Whose memory fans the sacred flame. 

And is this death ? first born to God, 
To trace that pure celestial sphere, 

And rise in faith and hope unawed. 
To joys we scarce can vision here ? 

Oh early blest — ^how vain our sighs, 
Our fond, impetuous tears how vain ; 

To heaven we raise our weeping eyes — 
Our loss is their eternal ^ain. 



67 



DEATH AND SLEEP. 



The angel of sleep and the angel of 
death were journeying arm in arm on the 
earth. Evening drew on. They seated 
themselves on a hill not far from the 
habitations of men. A solemn silence 
reigned around, and the evening bell in 
the distant village ceased to be heard. 

Tranquil and silent as it is their nature 
to be, these two benefactors of mortals sat 
in fraternal embrace, and night already 
approached. 

The angel of sleep then rose from his 
mossy seat, and strewed with delicate 
hand the invisible germs of slumber. The 
evening breezes wafted them to the peace-^ 
ful habitations of the weary husbandmen. 
Sweet slumbers now fell upon the inmates 
of the rustic dwellings, from the aged, 



58 DEATH AND SLEEP. 

whose tottering steps are supported by a 
staff, to the infant in the cradle. The 
sick forgot their pains, the afflicted their 
sorrows, and poverty its cares. All eyes 
were closed. 

Having performed his task, the kindly 
angel of sleep resumed his seat beside his 
graver brother. When the morning.dawn 
awakes, cried he with joyous innocence, 
then will men praise me as their friend 
and benefactor ! O how delightful to do 
good secretly and unseen ! How happy 
are we invisible ministers of the Most 
High ! How pleasing the silent duty 
which we are charged to perform ! 

Thus spake the benevolent angel of 
sleep. 

The angel of death surveyed him with 
silent melancholy, and tears, such as im- 
mortals weep, started into his large dark 
eyes. Ah ! said he, why am I not des- 
tined, like thee, to receive the tribute of 
joyful gratitude ? Mortals regard me as 
their enemy and the destroyer of their 
pleasures. 



DEATH AND SLEEP. 59 

Oh, my brother, rephed the angel of 
sleep, will not the good, when they awake, 
acknowledge and thankfully bless thee as 
their friend and benefactor? Are not we 
brothers and servants of one Father ? 

He spoke, and the eyes of the angel of 
death glistened, and the brother spirits 
clasped each other in a tender embrace. 



IMMORTALITY. 



Oh, never shall my soul the thoughts forego, 
Of high and pure intent, that lead me on 
To virtue's heights, and the immortal crown, 

Wreathed of the flowers that in heaven's garden grow. 

What though I tread a path of tears and woe, 
Nor mortal joy attendant on my way, 
The light of hope shall 'mid the darkness play, 

And purer pleasures teach my heart to glow. 

I long to join the blissful band on high, 
The spirits of the just, who overcame 
The bonds of sin, and whose undying fame 

Shall guide me to their glorious destiny. 

Then shrink not. Oh my soul ! but undismayed, 

Seek for the crown of life which will not fade. 



TRUST IN GOD UNDER AF- 
FLICTIONS. 



Numberless are the afflictions in body, 
mind, or fortune to which we are hable, 
and under which mankind are coniinnally 
suffering. While some are complaining 
of their losses, others are lamenting their 
successes. While some are mourning 
over dead relatives, others are mourning 
over living ones. One was lately happy 
in a companion and friend, — a wife per- 
haps, a husband, or a child, who was the 
comfort and delight of his life, but who has 
been torn from him by the stroke of 
death. He is left alone to travel the jour- 
ney of life ; he recollects with anguish 
the happiness he has lost, and a black 
veil is spread over all his enjoyments. 
Another has met with disappointments in 



TRUST IN GOD. 61 

his pursuits, or misfortunes in business ; 
he has been crossed in his hopes, and has 
miscarried in his undertakings; he is 
sunk under difficulties, and reduced from 
ease and plenty and affluence to perplexi- 
ty and poverty. One is languishing un- 
der a fatal distemper, — his strength ex- 
hausted, and his spirits broken; the ca- 
pacity of enjoying pleasure gone, the king 
of terrors threatening him, and the dreary 
grave opening to receive him. Another 
is pining away in a deep melancholy, ter- 
rified by apprehensions of imaginary evils, 
a stranger to every cheerful thought, anx- 
ious and distressed he knows not why, 
every object about him thrown into a dis- 
mal shade, and his whole soul wrapped 
up in darkness and horror. 

In such circumstances we are neces- 
sarily led to look out for comfort. Our 
condition would be dismal indeed had we 
nothing to stay our minds upon, or no 
cheering reflections to make in a time of 
private or public distress, when perhaps 

all the help of man is vain. But this is 
6 



62 TRUST IN GOD. 

not our case. There is an anchor of hope, 
on which we may always rely when 
tossed on the tempestuous sea of this 
world. There is a fund of consolation, to 
which we may always have recourse 
amidst the calamities to which we are 
liable. I mean, '^ trusting in the name 
of the Lord, and staying ourselves upon 
God." Are then any of us dejected or 
unhappy ? Is our prospect darkened by 
any cloud, or are we discouraged by the 
prospect of impending evil ? Let us turn 
our thoughts to the Deity, and reflect on 
his perfect government. Let us consider 
that the Lord reigneth, and that his right- 
eous Providence directs all events ; and 
that we cannot suffer except by the will 
of a wise and faithful Creator. This will 
throw a bright hght into our minds, and 
give us relief and support in all circum- 
stances. 

In order to be more explicit here, I 
would observe, first, that in such circum- 
stances we should consider, that the Deity 
is always intimately present with us, and 



TRUST IN GOD. 63 

sees all that passes in the world. It is 
his constant influence that preserves the 
world, and were he to withdraw his hand, 
or to suspend his energy, all nature would 
fall to pieces. He cannot, therefore, be 
unacquainted with any thing we feel or 
fear. He is indeed one with our souls ; 
the first mover in every motion, and the 
animating principle which gives eflicacy 
to all the powers of nature. 

In times of darkness it is proper we 
should further consider that this Being 
who is continually present with us, stands 
in the nearest relation to us. He is our 
parent, — we are his oflspring. He is our 
maker, — we are his creatures ; and it is 
impossible there should be a nearer rela- 
tion than that of children to their parent, 
or of creatures to their Creator. From Him 
we derive all our faculties, — to Him we 
owe all we possess ; the world is the work 
of his hands, and through and to Him are 
all things. 

To these reflections, let us add that this 
Being, thus present with us, and thus re- 



64 TRUST IN GOD. 

lated to us, is almighty, all- wise, and all- 
benevolent. Infinite power, wisdom, and 
goodness form one idea, and are neces- 
sarily united in the first Cause. There is 
no truth so important as this. It throws 
a lustre on every object, and is enough to 
reconcile us to every event. It is con- 
firmed by the voice and testimony of all 
nature. Wherever we see power displayed, 
there we see benevolence displayed. 

Nothing can afford such a ground for 
consolation in seasons of darkness, as the 
reflection on which I am now insisting. 
It gives a stay for our minds which can 
never fail or disappoint us. The im- 
mediate and necessary inference from it 
is, that we cannot possibly fall into any 
distress, or suffer any evil, which it is un- 
fit we should suffer. This is just as cer- 
tain as that there is a Deity who is pre- 
sent with us, and knows what we suffer ; 
that he is our Maker, and cannot see 
what we suffer with indifference ; that he 
is omnipotent, and able to remove it — in- 
finitely good, and inclined to remove it. 



TRUST IN GOD. 65 

Remember this, whenever any afflictions 
threaten you. Look up then to the first 
Cause, and consider that his goodness 
cannot but chase out of nature every 
calamity as soon as it becomes needless 
or improper. 

My feehngs have been sometimes so 
shocked when I have seen a fellow-crea- 
ture groaning under distress, that 1 have 
been ready to cry out in my haste, '' How 
is it possible that such sufferings should 
be consistent with the goodness of the 
Deity?" But I have soon corrected my- 
self by considering, whence did I receive 
these feelings ? Can I be more compas- 
sionate than the Being who gave me my 
compassion ? Were he malevolent, would 
he have made me to detest malevolence ? 
Is it credible that he should have planted 
within me principles which render his 
own character shocking to me ? Let us 
then in every season of private trouble, or 
public calamity, '4rust in the name of 
the Lord, and stay ourselves upon God." 
We exist not in a forlorn or fatherless 
6^ 



66 



TRUST IN GOD. 



world. We are the care and charge of 
infinite wisdom. All is well in nature, 
and every event subject to the best su- 
perintendency. We can wish for nothing 
beyond this. In such circumstances, to 
repine and mourn would be folly in- 
tolerable. It would be to repine and 
mourn because the world is not governed 
according to our narrow views ; that is, 
because it is not governed wrong. Could 
we work into our hearts these convictions, 
or bring ourselves properly under their 
pov/er, we should receive every affliction 
as a blessing; and in the midst of a storm 
or convulsion that may overturn a king- 
dom, we should hear a voice whispering 
peace to us, and assuring us of a favora- 
ble and happy issue. In short, knowing 
that every circumstance in the constitu- 
tion of the world, and the administration 
of events, is right beyond a possibility of 
correction, and good beyond a possibility 
of improvement, we should at all times 
take up the words of the prophet Ha- 
bakkuk, ^' although the fig-tree should not 



TRUST IN GOD. 67 

blossom, or fruit be in the vine, though 
the labor of the olive should fail, and the 
fields yield no meat, and the flock be cut 
off from the fold, and there should be no 
herd in the stall ; yet I will rejoice in the 
Lord, and glory in the God of my salvation. ' ' 
I cannot help observing here particular- 
ly, that our confidence in the Deity ought 
to be implicit; and that no appearances 
of irregularity in the dispensations of his 
providence ought to have any tendency to 
destroy it. Such appearances are un- 
avoidable to creatures who see but a part 
of the plan of Providence, and who are 
such incompetent judges of it as we are. 
There could not indeed be a stronger 
objection to it than our finding it so level 
to our capacities, that nothing in it ap- 
peared to us irregular or mysterious. This 
would be a greater difficulty than any that 
now occurs to us in contemplating God's 
government. It would imply, that the 
world was established, and that the 
course of events is directed by a wisdom 
no higher than our own. 



68 TRUST IN GOD. 

In examining the works of a complete 
artistj do you ever expect to understand 
the propriety and beauty of every part of 
it ? In order to this, ought you not your- 
self to be a complete artist 1 In reading a 
learned book, do you not always reckon 
the obscurer parts to be of a piece with 
the other parts, and not conclude them 
to be nonsense, because you do not un- 
derstand them ? In considering also the 
measures of any human government, do 
we not always reckon the same kind of 
allowance for our own ignorance to be 
reasonable ? In the present instance there 
is infinitely more reason for making such 
an allowance ; for we are infinitely less 
qualified to judge of the works of God 
and the scheme of Providence, than the 
lowest of us are to judge of the measures 
of the best-conducted government. 

It is necessary I should add, that all 
the encouragements on which I have now 
insisted are confirmed and increased by 
the Christian revelation. The arguments 
I have offered prove that we may assured- 



TRUST IN GOD. 69 

ly expect an exemption from every evil 
that it is improper we should suffer, and 
the possession of every good that it is 
proper we should enjoy. The voice of 
revelation concurs with reason in giving 
us this expectation. Christianity teaches 
us, that ^^not a sparrow falls to the 
ground without our heavenly Father, — 
that the hairs of our head are all number- 
ed by Him, — that his tender mercies are 
over all his works, — that He never wil- 
lingly grieveth any of us, — that afflictions 
are sent by Him for our correction and 
improvement, — that He only is wise and 
righteous, and at the same time in such a 
degree that it may be justly said that 
there is none besides good, — and that, in 
particular. He has displayed his goodness 
to us in sending Christ, the great Messiah, 
into the world to reveal his will to us, to 
deliver us from death, and to bring us to 
a blessed and glorious immortality .'' This 
is an information which raises our hopes 
to infinity; and under the influence of 
this hope we are exhorted to rejoice ever- 



70 FILIAL TRUST. 

more, in every thing to give thanks, and 
to welcome tribulation as working for us 
an exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 
The language which the Scriptures 
direct us to adopt in times of darkness is 
such language as the following: " When 
my soul fainteth I will remember the 
Lord; He is my light and my refuge, 
therefore will I not fear, though the earth 
be removed and the mountains be carried 
into the midst of the sea. O Lord of hosts, 
blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee ; 
he shall not be afraid of the terror by 
night, or the arrow that flieth by day ; no 
evil shall befall him, neither shall any 
plague come nigh his dwelling.'' 



FILIAL TRUST. 



My Father ! when around me spread 
I see the shadows of the tomb, 

And life's bright visions droop and fade, 
And darkness veils my future doom j 

Oh, in that anguished hour I turn 
With a still trusting heart to thee ! 



FILIAL TRUST. 71 

And holy thoughts still shine and bum 
Amid that cold, sad destiny. 

They fill my soul with heavenly light, 
While all around is pain and woe j 

And strengthened by them in thy sight, 
Father, to drink thy cup I go! 

Thy will be done — I will not fear 

The fate provided by thy love ; 
Though clouds and darkness shroud me here, 

I know that all is bright above. 

The stars of heaven are shining on, 

Though these frail eyes are dim with tears ; 

The hopes of earth indeed are gone. 
But are not ours th' immortal years ? 

Father ! forgive the heart that clings 
Thus trembling to the things of time, 

And bid my soul on angel wings 
Ascend into a purer clime ! 

There shall no doubts disturb its trust, 

No sorrows dim celestial love ; 
But these afflictions of the dust, 

Like shadows of the night, remove. 

That glorious hour will well repay 

A life of toil, and care, and woe j 
Oh Father ! joyful on my way, 

To drink thy bitter cup I go I 



72 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 



There is one method in Avhich Christ's 
resurrection gives aid to our faith in ano- 
ther life, which is not often dwelt on, and 
which seems to me worthy of attention. 
Our chief doubts and difficulties in regard 
to that state spring chiefly from the senses 
and the imagination, and not from the 
reason. The eye fixed on the hfeless 
body, on the Avan features and the mo- 
tionless limbs, and the imagination fol- 
lowing the frame into the dark tomb, and 
representing to itself the stages of decay 
and ruin, are apt to fill and oppress the 
mind with discouraging and appalling 
thoughts. The senses can detect in the 
pale corpse not a trace of the activity of 
that spirit which lately moved it. Death 
seems to have achieved an entire victory; 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 73 

and when reason and revelation speak of 
continued and a higher Hfe, the senses 
and imagination, pointing to the disfigured 
and mouldering body, obscure by their 
sad forebodings the light which reason 
and revelation strive to kindle in the be- 
reaved soul. 

Now the resurrection of Christ meets, 
if I may so say, the senses' and imagina- 
tion on their own ground, contends with 
them with their own weapons. It shows 
us the very frame on which death in its 
most humiliating form had set its seal, 
and which had been committed in utter 
hopelessness to the tomb, rising, breath- 
ing, moving with new life ; and rising not 
to return again to the earth, but, after a 
short sojourn, to ascend from the earth to 
a purer region, and thus to attest man's 
destination to a higher life. These facts, 
submitted to the very senses, and almost 
necessarily kindling the imagination to 
explore the unseen world, seem to me 
particularly suited to overcome the main 
difficulties in the way of Christian faith. 



74 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

Reason is not left to struggle alone with 
the horrors of the tomb. The assurance 
that Jesus Christ, who lived on the earth, 
who died on the cross, and was committed 
a mutilated, bleeding frame to the recepta- 
cle of the dead, rose uninjured, and then 
exchanged an earthly for a heavenly life, 
puts to flight the said auguries which rise 
like spectres fpom the grave, and helps us 
to conceive, as in our present weakness 
we could not otherwise conceive, of man's 
appointed triumph over death. 

Such is one of the aids given by the 
resurrection to faith in immortality. Still 
this faith is lamentably weak in the mul- 
titude of men. To multitudes heaven is 
almost a world of fancy. It wants sub- 
stance. The idea of a world in which 
beings exist without these gross bodies, 
exist as pure spirits, or clothed with re- 
fined and spiritual frames, strikes them as 
a fiction. What cannot be seen or touched, 
appears unreal. This is mournful but not 
wonderful ; for how can men, who im- 
merse themselves in the body and its in- 



THE FUTURE LIFE. /O 

terestSj and cultivate no acquaintance with 
their own souls and spiritual powers, 
comprehend a higher, spiritual life? There 
are multitudes who pronounce a man a 
visionary, who speaks distinctly and joy- 
fully of his future being, and of the tri- 
umph of the mind over bodily decay. 

This scepticism as to things spiritual 
and celestial, is as irrational and unphilo- 
sophical as it is degrading. We have 
more evidence that we have souls or spi- 
rits than that we have bodies. We are 
surer that we think, and feel, and will, 
than that we have solid and extended 
limbs and organs. Philosophers have 
said much to disprove the existence of 
matter and motion, but they have not 
tried to disprove the existence of thought; 
for it is by thought that they attempt to 
set aside the reality of material nature. 

Farther ; how irrational is it to imagine 
that there are no worlds but this, and no 
higher modes of existence than our own. 
Who that sends his eye through this im- 
mense creation, can doubt that there are 



76 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

orders of beings superior to ourselves, or 
can see any thing unreasonable in the 
doctrine, that there are states in which 
mind exists less circumscribed and clog- 
ged by matter than on earth; in other 
words, that there is a spiritual world ? It 
is childish to make this infant life of ours 
the model of existence in all other worlds. 
The philosopher, especially, who sees a 
vast chain of beings and an infinite varie- 
ty of life on this single globe, which is but 
a point in creation, should be ashamed of 
that narrowness of mind which can an- 
ticipate nothing nobler in the universe of 
God than his present mode of being. 

How, now, shall the doctrine of a fu- 
ture, higher life, the doctrine both of rea- 
son and revelation, be brought to bear 
more powerfully on the mind, to become 
more real and effectual? Various me- 
thods might be given. I shall confine 
myself to one. This method is, to seek 
some clearer, more definite conception of 
the future state. That world seems less 
real for want of some distinctness in its 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 77 

features. We should all believe it more 
firmly if we conceived of it more vividly. 
It seems unsubstantial from its vague- 
ness and dimness. I think it right, then, 
to use the aids of Scripture and reason in 
forming to ourselves something like a 
sketch of the life to come. The Scrip- 
tures, indeed, give not many materials for 
such a delineation, but the few they fur- 
nish are invaluable, especially when we 
add to these the lights thrown over futuri- 
ty by the knowledge of our own spiritual 
nature.' Every new law of the mind 
which we discover helps us to compre- 
hend its destiny ; for its future life must 
correspond to its great laws and essential 
powers. 

These aids we should employ to give 
distinctness to the spiritual state ; and it 
is particularly useful so to do, when ex- 
cellent beings, whom we have known and 
loved, pass from earth into that world. 
Nature prompts us to follow them to their 
new abode, to inquire into their new life, 

to represent to ourselves their new hap- 

7=^ 



78 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

piness ; and perhaps the spiritual world 
never becomes so near and real to us, as 
when we follow into it dear friends, and 
sympathize with them in the improve- 
ments and enjoyments of that blessed life. 
Do not say that there is danger here of 
substituting imagination for truth. There 
is no danger if we confine ourselves to the 
spiritual views of heaven given us in the 
New Testament, and interpret these by 
the principles and powers of our own 
souls. To me the subject is too dear and 
sacred to allow me to indulge myself in 
dreams. I want reality ; I want truth ; 
and this I find in God's word and in the 
human soul. 

When our virtuous friends leave the 
world, we know not the place where they 
go. We can turn our eyes to no spot in 
the universe and say they are there. Nor 
is our ignorance here of any moment. It 
is unimportant what region of space con- 
tains them. Whilst we know not to what 
place they go, we know, what is infinitely 
more interesting, to what beings they go. 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 79 

We know not where heaven is, but we 
know whom it contains, and this know- 
ledge opens us an infinite field for con- 
templation and delight. 

Our virtuous friends at death go to 
Jesus Christ. The New Testament al- 
ways speaks of Jesus as existing now 
in the spiritual world, and Paul tells us 
that it is the happiness of the holy, 
when absent from the body, to be pre- 
sent Avith the Lord. Here is one great 
fact in regard to futurity. The good, on 
leaving us here, meet their Savior ; and 
this view alone assures us of their un- 
utterable happiness. In this world they 
had cherished acquaintance with Jesus 
through the records of the Evangelists. 
They had followed him through his event- 
ful life with veneration and love, had 
treasured in their memories his words, 
works, and life-giving promises, and by 
receiving his spirit had learned something 
of the virtues and happiness of a higher 
world. Now they meet him, they see 
him. He is no longer a faint object to 



80 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

their mind, obscured by distance and by 
the mists of sense and the world. He is 
present to them, and more intimately pre- 
sent than we are to each other. Of this 
we are sure ; for whilst the precise mode 
of our future existence is unknown, we 
do know that spiritual beings in that 
higher state must approach and commune 
with each other more and more intimately 
in proportion to their progress. Those 
who are newly born into heaven meet 
Jesus, and meet from him the kindest 
welcome. The happiness of the Savior, 
in receiving to a higher life a human be- 
ing who has been redeemed, purified, in- 
spired with immortal goodness by his in- 
fluence, we can but imperfectly compre- 
hend. You can conceive what would be 
your feelings on welcoming to shore your 
best friend, who had been tossed on a 
perilous sea ; but the raptures of earthly 
reunion are faint compared with the hap- 
piness of Jesus in receiving the spirit for 
which he died, and which under his 
guidance has passed with an improving 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 81 

virtue through a world of sore temptation. 
We on earth meet after our long separa- 
tions to suffer as well as enjoy, and soon 
to part again. Jesus meets those who 
ascend from earth to heaven with the con- 
sciousness that their trial is past, their 
race is run, that death is conquered. With 
his far-reaching, prophetic eye he sees 
them entering a career of joy and glory 
never to end. And his benevolent wel- 
come is expressed with a power which 
belongs only to the utterance of heaven, 
and which communicates to them an im- 
mediate, confiding, overflowing joy. You 
know that on earth we sometimes meet 
human beings whose countenances at 
the first view scatter all distrust, and win 
from us something like the reliance of a 
long-tried friendship. One smile is enough 
to let us into their hearts, to reveal to us 
a goodness on which we may repose. 
That smile with which Jesus will meet 
the new-born inhabitant of heaven, that 
joyful greeting, that beaming of love from 
him who bled for us, that tone of wel- 



82 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

come, — all these I can faintly conceive, 
but no language can utter them. The 
joys of centuries will be crowded into that 
meeting. This is not fiction. It is truth 
founded on the essential laws of the mind. 
Our friends, when they enter heaven, 
meet Jesus Christ, and their intercourse 
with him will be of the most affectionate 
and ennobhng character. There will be 
nothing of distance in it. Jesus is indeed 
sometimes spoken of as reigning in the 
future world, and sometimes imagination 
places him on a real and elevated throne. 
Strange that such conceptions can enter 
the minds of Christians. Jesus will in- 
deed reign in heaven, and so he reigned 
on earth. He reigned in the fishing boat, 
from which he taught ; in the humble 
dwelling, where he gathered round him 
listening and confiding disciples. His 
reign is not the vulgar dominion of this 
world. It is the empire of a great, god- 
like, disinterested being, over minds capa- 
ble of comprehending and loving him. In 
heaven nothing like what we call govern- 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 83 

ment on earth can exist, for government 
here is founded in human weakness and 
guilt. The voice of command is never 
heard among the spirits of the just. Even 
on earth the most perfect government is 
that of a family, where parents employ- 
no tone but that of affectionate counsel, 
where filial affection reads its duty in the 
mild look and finds its law and motive in 
its own pure impulse. Christ will not be 
raised on a throne above his followers. 
On earth he sat at the same table with 
the publican and sinner. Will he recede 
from the excellent whom he has fitted for 
celestial mansions? How minds will 
communicate with one another in that 
world, we know not ; but we know that 
our closest embraces are but types of the 
spiritual nearness which will then be en- 
joyed; and to this intimacy with Jesus 
the new-born inhabitant of heaven is ad- 
mitted. 

But we have not yet exhausted this 
source of future happiness. The excel- 
lent go from earth not only to receive a 



84 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

joyful welcome and assurances of eternal 
love from the Lord. There is a still high- 
er view. They are brought by this new 
intercourse to a new comprehension of his 
mind, and to a new reception of his spirit. 
It is indeed a happiness to know that we 
are objects of interest and love to an illus- 
trious being ; but it is a greater happiness 
to know deeply the sublime and beautiful 
character of this being, to sympathize 
with him, to enter into his vast thoughts 
and pure designs, and to become associ- 
ated with him in the great ends for which 
he lives. Even here in our infant and 
dim state of being we learn enough of 
Jesus, of his divine philanthropy trium- 
phant over injuries and agonies, to thrill 
us with affectionate admiration. But 
those in heaven look into that vast, god- 
like soul as we have never done. They 
approach it as we cannot approach the 
soul of the most confiding friend ; and this 
nearness to the mind of Jesus awakens in 
themselves a power of love and virtue, 
which they little suspected during their 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 85 

earthly being. We all know how a 
man of mighty genius and of heroic feel- 
ing can impart himself to other minds, 
and raise them for a time to something 
like his own energy ; and in this we have 
a faint delineation of the power to be ex- 
erted on the minds of those who approach 
Jesus after death. As nature springs to a 
new life under the beams of the sun, so 
will the human soul be warmed and ex- 
panded under the influence of Jesus 
Christ. It will then become truly con- 
scious of the immortal power treasured 
up in itself. His greatness will not over- 
whelm it, but will awaken a correspond- 
ing grandeur. 

Nor is this topic yet exhausted. The 
good, on approaching Jesus, will not only 
sjT-mpathize with his spirit, but will be- 
come joint workers, active, efficient minis- 
ters, in accomplishing his great work of 
spreading virtue and happiness. We must 
never think of heaven as a state of inac- 
tive contemplation, or of unproductive 
feeling. Even here on earth, the influence 
8 



86 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

of Christ's character is seen in awakening 
an active, self-sacrificing goodness. It 
sends the true disciples to the abodes of 
the suffering. It binds them by new ties 
to their race. It gives them a new con- 
sciousness of being created for a ministry 
of beneficence ; and can they, when they 
approach more nearly this divine Philan- 
thropist, and learn, by a new alliance 
with him, the fullness of his love, can 
they fail to consecrate themselves to his 
work and to kindred labors with an ener- 
gy of will unknown on earth ? In truth, 
our sympathy with Christ could not be 
perfect, did we not act with him. Nothing 
so unites beings as co-operation in the 
same glorious cause, and to this imion 
with Christ the excellent above are re- 
ceived. 

There is another very interesting view 
of the future state, which seems to me to 
be a necessary consequence of the con- 
nection to be formed there with Jesus 
Christ. Those who go there from among 
us must retain the deepest interest in this 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 87 

■world. Their ties to those they have left 
are not dissolved, but only refined. On 
this point, indeed, I want not the evidence 
of revelation ; I want no other evidence 
than the essential principles and laws of 
the soul. If the future state is to be an 
improvement on the present, if intel- 
lect is to be invigorated and love ex- 
panded there, then memory, the funda- 
mental power of the intellect, must act 
with new energy on the past, and all the 
benevolent affections which have been 
cherished here must be quickened into a 
higher life. To suppose the present state 
blotted out hereafter from the mind, would 
be to destroy its use, would cut off all 
connection between the two worlds, and 
would subvert responsibility ; for how can 
retribution be a^varded for a forgotten 
existence? No; we must carry the pre- 
sent Avith us, whether we enter the world 
of happiness or woe. The good will in- 
deed form new, holier, stronger ties above ; 
but under the expanding influence of that 
better world the human heart will be ca- 



88 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

pacious enough to retain the old whilst it 
receives the new, to remember its birth- 
place with tenderness whilst enjoying a 
maturer and happier being. Did I think 
of those who are gone as dying to those 
they left, I should honor and love them 
less. The man who forgets his home 
when he quits it, seems to want the best 
sensibilities of our nature; and if the 
good were to forget their brethren on 
earth in their new abode, were to cease to 
intercede for them in their nearer approach 
to their common Father, could we think 
of them as improved by the change? 

All this I am compelled to infer from 
the nature of the human mind. But when 
I add to this, that the new-born heirs of 
heaven go to Jesus Christ, the great lover 
of the human family, who dwelt here, 
suffered here, who moistened our earth 
with his tears and blood, who has gone 
not to break off, but to continue and per- 
fect his beneficent labors for mankind, 
whose mind never for a moment turns from 
our race, whose interest in the progress of 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 89 

his truth and the salvation of the tempted 
soul has been growing more and more in- 
tense ever since he left our world, and who 
has thus bound up our race with his very 
being, — when I think of all this, I am sure 
that they cannot forget our world. Could 
we hear them, I believe they would tell us 
that they never truly loved the race be- 
fore ; never before knew what it is to 
sympathize with human sorrow, to re- 
joice in human virtue, to mourn for hu- 
man guilt. A new fountain of love to 
man is opened within them. They now 
see what before dimly gleamed on them, 
the capacities, the mysteries of a human 
soul. The significance of that word Im- 
mortality is now apprehended, and every 
being destined to it rises into unutterable 
importance. They love human nature as 
never before, and human friends are prized 
as above all price. 

Perhaps it may be asked whether those 
born into heaven not only remember 
with interest, but have a present, im- 
mediate knowledge of those whom they 
8# 



90 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

left on earth. On this point neither 
Scripture nor the principles of human 
nature give us light, and we are of course 
left to uncertainty. I will only say, that 
I know nothing to prevent such know- 
ledge. We are indeed accustomed to 
think of heaven as distant; but of this 
we have no proof Heaven is the union, 
the society of spiritual, higher beings. 
May not these fill the universe, so as to 
make heaven everywhere ? are such be- 
ings probably circumscribed, as we are, 
by material limits ? Milton has said, — 

" Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth 
Both when we wake and when we sleep.'' 

It is possible that the distance of heaven 
lies wholly in the veil of flesh, which we 
now want power to penetrate. A new 
sense, a new eye, might show the spirit- 
ual world compassing us on every side. 

But suppose heaven to be remote. Still 
we on earth may be visible to its inhabi- 
tants; still in an important sense they 
may be present; for what do we mean 
by presence ? Am I not present to those 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 91 

of you who are beyond the reach of my 
arm, but whom I distinctly see? And 
is it at all inconsistent with our know- 
ledge of nature, to suppose that those in 
heaven, whatever be their abode, may 
have spiritual senses, organs by which 
they may discern the remote as clearly 
as we do the near 7 This little ball of 
sight can see the planets at the distance 
of millions of miles, and by the aids of 
science can distinguish the inequalities of 
their surfaces. And it is easy for us to 
conceive of an organ of vision so sensitive 
and piercing, that from our earth the in- 
habitants of those far-rolling worlds might 
be discerned. Why then may not they 
who have entered a higher state, and are 
clothed with spiritual frames, survey our 
earth as distinctly as when it was their 
abode ? 

This may be the truth ; but if we re- 
ceive it as such, let us not abuse it. It is 
liable to abuse. Let us not think of the 
departed as looking on us with earthly, 
partial affections. They love us more 



92 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

than ever, but with a refined and spiritual 
love. They have now but one wish for 
us, which is, that we may fit ourselves 
to join them in their mansions of benevo- 
lence and piety. Their spiritual vision 
penetrates to our souls. Could we hear 
their voice, it would not be an utterance 
of personal attachment, so much as a 
quickening call to greater effort, to more 
resolute self-denial, to a wider charity, to 
a meeker endurance, a more filial obedi- 
ence of the will of God. Nor must we 
think of them as appropriated to ourselves. 
They are breathing now an atmosphere 
of divine benevolence. They are charged 
with a higher mission than when they 
trod the earth. And this thought of the 
enlargement of their love should enlarge 
ours, and carry us beyond selfish regards 
to a benevolence akin to that with which 
they are inspired. 

It is objected, I know, to the view I 
have given of the connection of the in- 
habitants of heaven with this world, that 
it is inconsistent with their happiness. It 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 93 

is said that if they retain their knowledge 
of this state, they must suffer from the 
recollection or sight of our sins and woes; 
that to enjoy heaven, they must wean 
themselves from the earth. This objec- 
tion is worse than superficial. It is a re- 
proach to heaven and the good. It sup- 
poses that the happiness of that world is 
founded in ignorance, that it is the hap- 
piness of the blind man, who, were he to 
open his eye on what exists around him, 
would be filled with horror. It makes 
heaven an Elysium, whose inhabitants 
perpetuate their joy by shutting them- 
selves up in narrow bounds, and hiding 
themselves from the pains of their fellow- 
creatures. But the good, from their very 
nature, cannot thus be confined. Heaven 
would be a prison, did it cut them off 
from sympathy Avith the suflfering. Their 
benevolence is too pure, too divine, to 
shrink from the sight of evil. Let me 
add, that the objection before us casts re- 
proach on God. It supposes that there 
are regions of his universe which must be 



94 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

kept out of sight J which, if seen, would 
bhght the happiness of the virtuous. But 
this cannot be true. There are no such 
regions, no secret places of woe which 
these pure spirits must not penetrate. 
There is impiety in the thought. In such 
a universe there could be no heaven. 

Do you tell me that according to these 
views suffering must exist in that blessed 
state? I reply, I do and must regard 
heaven as a world of sympathy. Nothing, 
I believe, has greater power to attract the 
regards of its benevolent inhabitants, than 
the misery into which any of their fellow- 
creatures may have fallen. The suffer- 
ing which belongs to a virtuous sympa- 
thy I cannot then separate from heaven. 
But that sympathy, though it has sorrow, 
is far from being misery. Even in this 
world a disinterested compassion, when 
joined with power to minister to suffering, 
and with wisdom to comprehend its gra- 
cious purposes, is a spirit of peace, and 
often issues in the purest delight. Un- 
alloyed as it will be in another world by 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 95 

our present infirmities, and enlightened 
by comprehensive views of God's perfect 
government, it will give a charm and 
loveliness to the sublimer virtues of the 
blessed, and, like all other forms of ex- 
cellence, will at length enhance their fe- 
licity. 

We see how much of heaven is taught 
us in the single truth, that they who en- 
ter it meet and are united to Jesus Christ. 
There are other interesting vieAvs at which 
I can only glance. The departed go not 
to Jesus only. They go to the great and 
blessed society which is gathered round 
him, to the redeemed from all regions of 
earth, ^^ to the city of the living God, to 
an innumerable company of angels, to 
the church of the first born, to the spirits 
of the just made perfect." Into what a 
glorious community do they enter ! And 
how they are received you can easily un- 
derstand. We are told, there is joy in 
heaven over the sinner who repenteth; 
and will not his ascension to the abode of 
perfect virtue communicate more fervent 



96 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

happiness ? Our friends who leave us for 
that world do not find themselves cast 
among strangers. No desolate feeling 
springs up of having exchanged their 
home for a foreign country. The tender- 
est accents of human friendship never 
approached in affectionateness the voice 
of congratulation, which bids them wel- 
come to their new and everlasting abode. 
In that world, where minds have surer 
means of revealing themselves than here^ 
the newly arrived immediately see and 
feel themselves encompassed with virtue 
and goodness ; and through this insight 
into the congenial spirits which surround 
them, intimacies stronger than years can 
cement on earth may be created in a mo- 
ment. 

It seems to me accordant with all the 
principles of human nature, to suppose 
that the departed meet peculiar congratu- 
lation from friends who had gone before 
them to that better world ; and especially 
from all who had in any way given aids 
to their virtue ; from parents who had in- 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 97 

Stilled into them the first lessons of love 
to God and man ; from associates, whose 
examples had won them to goodness, 
whose faithful counsels deterred them 
from sin. The ties created by such bene- 
fits must be eternal. The grateful soul 
must bind itself with peculiar affection to 
such as guided it to immortality. 

In regard to the happiness of the inter- 
course of the future state, all of you, I 
trust, can form some apprehensions of it. 
If we have ever known the enjoyments of 
friendship, of entire confidence, of co- 
operation in honorable and successful la- 
bors with those we love, we can compre- 
hend something of the felicity of a world, 
where souls, refined from selfishness, open 
as the day, thirsting for new truth and 
virtue, endued with new power of enjoy- 
ing the beauty and grandeur of the uni- 
verse, allied in the noblest works of 
benevolence, and continually discovering 
new mysteries of the Creator's power and 
goodness, communicate themselves to one 
another with the freedom of perfect love. 
9 



98 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

The closest attachments of this hfe are 
cold, distant, stranger-hke, compared with 
theirs. How they commmiicate them- 
selves, by what language or organs, we 
know not. But this we know, that in the 
progress of the mind, its power of impart- 
ing itself must improve. The eloquence, 
the thrilling, inspiring tones, in which the 
good and noble sometimes speak to us on 
earth, may help us to conceive the ex- 
pressiveness, harmony, energy of the lan- 
guage in which superior beings reveal 
themselves above. Of what they con- 
verse we can better judge. They who 
enter that world meet beings whose re- 
collections extend through ages, who have 
met together perhaps from various worlds, 
who have been educated amidst infinite 
varieties of condition, each of whom has 
passed through his own discipline and 
reached his own peculiar form of perfec- 
tion, and each of whom is a peculiar 
testimony to the providence of the Univer- 
sal Father. What treasures of memory, 
observation, experience, imagery, illustra- 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 99 

tion, must enrich the intercourse of hea- 
ven ! One angePs history may be a vo- 
lume of more various truth than ail the 
records of our race. — After all, how little 
can our present experience help us to un- 
derstand the intercourse of heaven, a 
communion marred by no passion, chilled 
by no reserve, depressed by no conscious- 
ness of sin, trustful as childhood, and 
overflowing with innocent joy; a com- 
munion in which the noblest feelings 
spring fresh from the heart, in which pure 
beings give familiar utterance to their 
divinest inspirations, to the wonder which 
perpetually springs up amidst this ever 
unfolding and ever mysterious universe, 
to the raptures of adoration and pious 
gratitude, and to the swellings of a sympa- 
thy which cannot be confined. 

But it would be wrong to imagine that 
the inhabitants of heaven only converse. 
They who reach that world enter on a 
state of action, life, effort. We are apt 
to think of the future world as so happy 
that none need the aid of others, that 



100 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

eflbrt ceases, that the good have nothmg 
to do but to enjoy. The truth is, that all 
action on earth, even the mtensest, is but 
the sport of childhood, compared with the 
energy and activity of that higher hfe. 
It must be so. For what principles are 
so active as intellect, benevolence, the 
love of truth, the thirst for perfection, 
sympathy with the suffering, and devo- 
tion to God's purposes; and these are the 
ever expanding principles of the future 
life. It is true, the labors which are now 
laid on us for food, raiment, outward in- 
terests, cease at the grave. But far deep- 
er wants than those of the body are de- 
veloped in heaven. There it is that the 
spirit first becomes truly conscious of its 
capacities ; that truth opens before us in 
its infinity; that the universe is seen to 
be a boundless sphere for discovery, for 
science, for the sense of beauty, for benefi- 
cence, and for adoration. There new 
objects to live for, which reduce to no- 
thingness present interests, are constantly 
unfolded. We must not think of heaven 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 101 

as a stationary community. I think of it 
as a world of stupendous plans and efforts 
for its own improvement. I think of it 
as a society passing through successive 
stages of development, virtue, know- 
ledge, power, by the energy of its own 
members. Celestial genius is always ac- 
tive to explore the great laws of the 
creation and the everlasting principles of 
the mind, to disclose the beautiful in the 
universe, and to discover the means by 
which every soul may be carried forward. ' 
In that world, as in this, there are di- 
versities of intellect, and the highest minds 
find their happiness and progress in ele- 
vating the less improved. There the 
work of education, which began here, 
goes on without end ; and a diviner phi- 
losophy than is taught on earth reveals 
the spirit to itself, and awakens it to ear- 
nest, joyful effort for its own perfection. 

And not only will they who are born 

into heaven enter a society full of life and 

action for its own development. Heaven 

has connection with other worlds. Its in- 

9=^ 



10^ THE FUTURE LIFE. 

habitants are God's messengers through 
the creation. They have great trusts. In 
the progress of their endless being they 
may have the care of other worlds. But 
I pause, lest to those unused to such 
speculations I seem to exceed the bounds 
of calm anticipation. What I have spoken 
seems to me to rest on God's word, and 
the laws of the mind, and these laws are 
everlasting. 

On one more topic I meant to enlarge, 
but I must forbear. They who are born 
into heaven go, not only to Jesus, and an 
innumerable company 'of pure beings. 
They go to God. They see Him with a 
new light in all his works. Still more, 
they see Him, as the Scriptures teach, 
face to face, that is, by immediate com- 
munion. These new relations of the as- 
cended spirit to the Universal Father, 
how near ! how tender ! how strong ! how 
exalting ! But this is too great a subject 
for the time which remains. And yet it 
is the chief element of the felicity of 
heaven. 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 103 

The views now given of the future 
state should make it an object of deep 
interest, earnest hope, constant pursuit. 
Heaven is, in truth, a glorious reality. Its 
attraction should be felt perpetually. It 
should overcome the force with which 
this world draws us to itself. Were there 
a country on earth uniting all that is 
beautiful in nature, all that is great in 
virtue, genius, and the liberal arts, and 
numbering among its citizens the most 
illustrious patriots, poets, philosophers, 
philanthropists of our age, how eagerly 
should we cross the ocean to visit it ! And 
how immeasurably greater is the attrac- 
tion of heaven ! There live the elder 
brethren of the creation, the sons of the 
morning, who sang for joy at the creation 
of our race ; there the great and good of 
all ages and climes ; the friends, benefac- 
tors, deliverers, ornaments of their race ; • 
the patriarch, prophet, apostle, and mar- 
tyr; the true heroes of public and still 
more of private life ; the father, mother, 
wife, husband; child, who, unrecorded by 



104 THE FUTURE LIFE. 

man, have walked before God in the 
beauty of love and self-sacrificing virtue. 
There are all who have built up in our 
hearts the power of goodness and truth, 
the writers from whose pages we have 
received the inspiration of pure and lofty- 
sentiments, the friends whose counte- 
nances have shed light through our 
dwellings, and peace and strength through 
our hearts. There they are gathered to- 
gether, safe from every storm, triumphant 
over evil ; and they say to us, Come and 
join us in our everlasting blessedness; 
come and bear part in our song of praise ; 
share our adoration, friendship, progress, 
and works of love. They say to us, 
Cherish now in your earthly life that 
spirit and virtue of Christ which is the 
beginning and dawn of heaven, and we 
shall soon welcome y^ou, with more than 
human friendship, to our own immortali- 
ty. Shall that voice speak to us in vain ? 
Shall our worldliness and unforsaken sins 
separate us, by a gulf which cannot be 
passed, from the society of heaven ? 



FRIENDS IN HEAVEN. 



Sealed is the voice that used to speak 
So gladly of our loved and lost 5 

And at their names pale is the cheek, 

Even of the friends that loved them most. 

A solemn silence shrines the dead — 
A sacred hush — a faltering tone 5 

And trembling footsteps slowly tread 
Upon the spot so late their own. 

Not thus I feel their hourly loss — 
J think of them in light and love ; 

Emblem of life, I view the cross, 
And faith's fond gaze I turn above. 

I miss them — ah ! in every place ; 

I sometimes feel the unbidden tear ; 
I cherish every fading trace. 

But never, never wish them here. 

Their tears are past, their crown is won, 
Th' immortal wreath is all their own • 

I seem to hear the chant begun. 
Of joy around th' eternal throne. 



106 HOPE. 

YeSj thoughts of peace and holiness 
Surround their images ; to me, 

'T is not a feeling of distress 
To muse on their loved memory. 

'T is hope, 't is triumph, and 't is praise ; 

God ! to thee be glory given, 
Who, in the darkest of our days, 

Hast linked us to the bliss of heaven. 

I will not yield this pure delight 
To vain regrets or faithless sighs ; 

Memory to me shall shine, a light 
To blend our severed destinies. 



HOPE. 

NEVER, never close thy heart 

To human hope — her rapturous power 

Shall chase the tear-drops as they start, 
And light with smiles the future hour. 

Hope on — hope on — it may not be — 
Yet let thy heart-dreams still be bright ; 

Still picture that sweet destiny 
In which thy spirit may delight. 

Thy friend is at thy side — ah no ! 

That friend must find an early tomb, 
And death's dark veil conceal below 

That eye of love, that cheek of bloom. 



HOPE. 107 

But dearer hopes shall still be thine ; 

That tender gaze, that angel face 
Shall all thy soul's fond hopes enshrine, 

And every lighter grief efface. 

Alas ! that gaze shall coldly change, 
That angel glance be thine no more ; 

And coming years that love estrange. 
Which was to bless till life was o'er. 

Yet still hope on — though friendship weep, 
Thy friend awaits thee 'mongst the blest ; 

Thy hope, thy faith, thy fondness keep. 
Go — seek her in the realms of rest ! 

Live as she lived — on others pour 
The stream of kindness and of peace j 

And with deep trust behold the hour 

When earth's bereaved tears shall cease. 

And for thy lost and broken love, 

! whisper to thy aching heart, 
That He that anguish can remove. 

Whose will supreme first bade you part. 

Yes ! thou shalt meet that angel gaze. 
Again thine own, in realms of bliss. 

Where love shall wear immortal rays. 
And, unreproved, thy heart be his. 

Hope on — hope on — for joy is here. 

Even in this dark and chequered scene j 

Go ! chase thy every doubt and fear, 
Thy life a Father'' s care hath been. 



THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 



In times of trouble prayer to God is as 
natural as it is right ; but who can sing 
the songs of praise under the clouds of 
sorrow, and amidst the waters of afflic- 
tion ? What connection is there between 
thanksgiving and distress ? 

We may observe, in general, that 
afflictions are not evils. Let me not be 
mistaken ; I mean not to deny that na- 
ture shrinks from them; I mean not to 
insinuate, that we can by any means ren- 
der ourselves insensible to pain and sor- 
row. I speak not of the present pressure 
of affliction, but with respect to the future 
consequences of present suffering; with 
respect to the moral influences of adversi- 
ty ; with respect to the fair and the abun- 
dant fruits of holiness and happiness, 



THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 109 

which, by faith and patience and diU- 
gence, it may be made to yield. I speak 
with regard to the whole^ both of our con- 
dition and our existence ; and when it is 
asserted that afflictions are not evils, it is 
meant, that without them we should have 
less comfort in this present scene of things, 
or fewer advantages in our power with 
respect to that eternal state which is soon 
to succeed it. They do, or at least, if it is 
not our own fault, they may advance our 
interests upon the whole, and therefore 
are not upon the whole evils. 

No evil being has any thing to do in 
the government of the world ; it is ruled 
by the God of love. Our sharpest pains, 
our severest anguish, are not the cruelties 
of a malignant principle, they are not the 
barbarous sport of an insensible and wan- 
ton mind; they are not blown to us by 
the wind of chance, nor borne down upon 
us by the torrent of an unintelligent and 
irresistible destiny. They are the gracious 
visitations of our heavenly Father, with- 
out whom not a sparrow falleth to the 
10 



110 THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 

ground, nor a hair from the human head. 
We call them evils, and yet they come 
from the pure and incorruptible fountain 
of all good ; and it is with the kindest in- 
tention that they are sent to us. Did we 
see with the eyes of God, we should call 
them all blessings ; for they are all alike 
capable of being converted by us to our in- 
terest, and all alike intended to do us good. 
If any confidence can be placed in the 
clearest deductions of reason, this is an 
indubitable consequence of the absolute 
independence and infinite perfection of 
God. The word of God is as clear and 
full as we could wish it, on a point of 
such mighty moment to our tranquillity 
and comfort. How often are we told 
there, that nothing happens to us but by 
his appointment; that there is no evil, 
nothing that we blindly call so, but of his 
creating ; that he has no pleasure either 
in the destruction or the distresses of his 
creatures ; that he does not willingly af- 
flict or grieve the children of men ; that he 
chastens them, not for his own pleasure, 



THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. Ill 

but for their profit, that they may ba 
made ^^ partakers of his hohness." How 
often are we taught that the sufferings of 
Hfe are not the tokens of divine wrath, 
but the testimonies of God's paternal at- 
tention and compassion ; that the trials 
of adversity, the various calamities with 
which we are visited, are calculated to 
promote our virtue, to improve our com- 
fort, to secure our best interest, and to 
enlarge our heavenly inheritance. The 
light affliction of this transitory world, 
^' which is but for a moment, worketh out 
for us a far more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory.'' 

If such then be the nature of afflictions ; 
if such be the principle from which they 
come ; if such be their genuine tendency, 
and such the advantages they put into 
our hands, have we no reason to give 
thanks for them 7 Difficult it may be, 
but unreasonable it is not. 

No man can be at a loss to say, which 
hath the greater obligation to his father, 
the child that is suffered, without disci- 



112 THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 

pline or culture, to grow up in ignorance 
and folly, the slave of humor, appetite 
and passion ; or the child whose preju- 
dices are carefully corrected, whose follies 
are properly rebuked, whose faults are 
mercifully and calmly, yet steadily and 
uniformly chastised, and who is instruct- 
ed, or assisted to instruct himself, in 
whatever is of most importance to the in- 
terests of his future life ; and it is not to 
be doubted, that when they have each at- 
tained to maturity of judgment, and ac- 
quired experience in human things, the 
one will lament the blind indulgence that 
permitted him without interruption to en- 
joy himself according to his own will, 
and the other will rejoice in the hardships 
to which he was inured, and will estimate 
even the severities, that excited no grati- 
tude at the time, among the truest argu- 
ments of parental tenderness and love. 
This whole life, in respect to the whole 
of our existence, is a scene of discipline 
and education; have we not reason to 
rejoice in the superintendence of our 



THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 113 

heavenly Father? If we were left with- 
out the instructions and admonitions, 
without the correctives and corroborations 
of adversity, then would he not deal with 
us as sons. 

But, to put the discipline of this life as 
it affects the interests of the next out of 
the account — to consider only the enjoy- 
ment of our present being; it might bear 
a doubt, whether such sufferings as or- 
dinarily fall to the lot of men, together 
with the supports, the consolations, the 
deliverances that are ordinarily granted 
them, do not make, or put it in our power 
to make, even this present state a more 
desirable and more comfortable scene, 
than if every species of adversity were 
absolutely excluded from it. There is a 
joy in deliverance, that exists not in un- 
interrupted security ; there is a delight in 
the restoration of a comfort, which for a 
time has been either totally or in part 
suspended, that is not to be found in the 
continued possession of it. There are a 

multitude of soothing satisfactions that 
10# 



114 THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 

are peculiar to the hour of trouble. While 
we reflect on the blessings that remain, 
they are the more endeared to us ; when 
we experience the efficacy of those sup- 
ports with which God has furnished us, 
how sweet are our reflections on the ten- 
derness of our heavenly Father, who 
never leaves us nor forsakes us ; who 
forgetteth not how frail we are ; and who 
in the midst of judgment remembers 
mercy ! 

What joy is it to the Christian, (and all 
men may attain the Christian temper,) 
what joy is it to reflect that his trials have 
not overcome his faith, nor extinguished 
his devotion, nor diminished his alacrity 
in the service of his Maker? What joy 
is it that he bears, or strives to bear, his 
burdens with a decent composure, and 
that he improves, or labors to improve 
them with all fidelity and diligence ? Into 
what tenderness does not sorrow melt the 
heart of friendship ? What unusual and 
delightful acceptableness does it not im- 
part to all its services ? What stability 



THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 115 

and firmness does it not forever add unto 
the union ? 

These things, if we attend to them, may- 
suffice to satisfy us, that with respect even 
to the enjoyment of the present hfe, it is 
no undesirable thing that we should some- 
times receive the visits of adversity. 

I Avill not ask the sinner if he has no 
cause to be thankful for the afflictions that 
recall him from his wanderings, and cure 
him of his levity, and bring him back to 
God. Let me ask the Christian, who may 
perhaps think that he stands less in need 
of such distasteful dispensations, if there 
be no cause for thankfulness in circum- 
stances that may enliven his conviction 
of his own weakness and insufficiency, 
and of his absolute dependence upon God ? 
in circumstances that most feelingly de- 
monstrate to him the importance of the 
divine favor, and the vanity of all human 
things ? in circumstances that most pow- 
erfully incline him to serious thought and 
sincere devotion ; that melt his heart into 
all the sweet and amiable sympathies of 



116 THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 

Christian charity and love; that clothe 
him more gracefully than ever in hu- 
mility ; that engage him in the most ac- 
curate examination of his heart and con- 
duct, and that quicken the sentiments of 
patience, and strengthen his resolutions of 
obedience 7 In such circumstances, Chris- 
tian, is there nothing for which thou 
shouldst give thanks ? These advantages 
affliction offers thee; these uses thou 
mayst make of it. Whilst thou prayest 
to God, then, that he would give thee 
grace so to improve them, shouldst thou 
not give thanks that thou hast them in 
thy hands so to be improved ? 

In our afflictions it becomes us to 
unite thanksgivings with our prayers 
for another reason also, viz. that our suf- 
ferings are not so great as our demerit. 
What, may the Christian say, had been 
my condition, if it had been determined 
by my merit? If for every instance in 
which I had forgotten God he had for- 
gotten me and my concerns, if for every 
duty I had neglected he had subtracted 



THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 117 

but one from my comforts and enjoy- 
ments, if for every deviation I have made 
from the way of his commandments his 
chastisements had come upon me; my 
hopes would have been extinguished, my 
comforts have been exhausted, and my 
miseries have been already insupportable. 
'^How precious are his thoughts unto me! 
how great is the sum of them !" It is true, 
I have been happier; but while I can hope 
in God that he will extend his compassion 
to me, and can rejoice in his benignity 
that he has not chastened me according 
to my demerit, but according to his own 
goodness, lam not unhappy still. Thy 
mercy, O my God, appears in every dis- 
pensation of thy providence. The pros- 
perities thou bestowest on me demand 
my gratitude, for I am not worthy of 
them ; I am not even worthy to be chas- 
tened with so much tenderness and pity. 
Such, in regard to the dispensations of 
Divine Providence, are the sentiments of 
every heart that is truly Christian. In 
this manner does the Christian own his 
obligation in all things to give thanks. 



118 THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 

In the hour of trouble it Hkewise be- 
comes us to offer thanks because, let our 
condition be what it may, it is not so 
afflictive as it might have been. 

In every sorrow that you have ever yet 
experienced, it would be very easy for 
you to imagine what would have greatly 
aggravated and embittered it. There 
were still some powers of your nature, 
there were still some circumstances of 
your situation, which the arrows of ad- 
versity had not reached. If you were 
poor, perhaps you were in health ; if you 
were sick, perhaps you did not want what 
might procure you wherewith to mitigate 
and remove your sicknesses. If your 
bodies were diseased, your minds were 
not disordered, you were still possessed 
of your rational and moral powers ; and 
though your bodily diseases were many, 
you were not exercised with all the pains 
and sicknesses that might have been com- 
bined together ; it is probable you might 
have recollected among your friends, per- 
haps you might have found within your 



THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 119 

neighborhood, those that were at that very 
time proved with more. If your friends 
were in trouble, yet it was only some, not 
all of them ; you perhaps were not afflict- 
ed but in their affliction : if you were in 
trouble, they perhaps were not afflicted 
but in yours. You were not incapacitat- 
ed for performing the offices of friendship 
for them, nor they withheld from render- 
ing the like services to you. 

If your troubles were of such a nature 
as to admit of human consolation and re- 
lief, it is probable that they befell you in 
a scene, and at a time, when such aids 
and comforts might be obtained. If of 
such a nature they were not, and the 
whole burden must have been borne by 
yourself alone, it is very probable you can 
call to remembrance those seasons and 
conjunctures of your life, those states of 
mind, of body, or of circumstances which 
formerly you have experienced, in which 
it w^as possible you might have been 
placed again, wherein the troubles that 
oppressed you would have borne upon 



120 THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 

you much more heavily, and have affect- 
ed you with much keener and more in- 
supportable distress. 

If your anguish has been very sharp, it 
has not been very tedious ; if your sorrow- 
has been of some continuance, it has not 
been without intervals of comfort and en- 
joyment, and perhaps all along it has 
been very tolerable. If the afflictions 
which you have feared have overtaken 
you, yet you feared them perhaps some 
time before you felt them, and when they 
came, though you found them very pain- 
ful, yet not so distressing as you feared. 
They might have embittered life much 
sooner, they might have embittered it 
much more. 

In every scene of affliction, in every 
hour of trouble, there is something for 
which we may, something for which, if 
we would be faithful to our duty, we 
must give thanks. There is no condition 
of human life that we ever have ex- 
perienced, or ever shall, from which some 
consolations, still left us, might not have 



THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 121 

been withdrawn ; to which some sorrow 
might not have been added ; in which 
some circumstances might not have been 
altered for the worse. 

It becomes us also, in our afflictions, 
to unite thanksgiving with our suppUca- 
tion, because our afflictions in this hfe 
never are so great but that they admit of 
consolation. 

Diseases both of body and mind are in 
very many instances capable of being 
cured by proper applications; and even 
in those instances where they prove in- 
curable, the anguish of them, ordinarily 
at least, is capable of being mitigated ; 
and such is the benignity of God, that 
both in the material and spiritual worlds 
he hath furnished us with a variety of 
remedies and lenitives for the various 
pains and distresses to which we are lia- 
ble. It is a law of our nature that reflects 
the greatest honor on the Author of it, 
and calls upon us for perpetual gratitude, 
that in many cases, the longer we sufier, 
the lighter our sufferings become. If our 
11 



122 THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 

pleasures please us less when they are 
become habitual^ this is abundantly made 
up to us in the counterpart of the appoint- 
ment — that our distresses distress us less, 
as we become inured to them. 

Prayer is another of the comforts of 
which we may avail ourselves in our 
afflictions ; it is a comfort which God ex- 
tends to us, and which he means, which 
he expects, which he requires us to take. 
To our dutiful endeavors to sustain our 
sorrows, we may add our pious supplica- 
tions for support and comfort and relief; 
and having done this, we cannot in any 
circumstances, however distressing, be 
devoid of hope. Hope is the great cordial 
of human life. It must mingle with our 
most prosperous circumstances, or the en- 
joyment of them will be but very dull 
and languid and imperfect : without hope, 
the adversities of life, even in the lightest 
instances, would sit heavily on our hearts ; 
and on the contrary, our most grievous 
sufferings yield in some measure to its 
cheering influences. In our worst condi- 



THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 123 

tion, we are not without hope that the day 
is coming when it may be better with us ; 
our pains may cease, our fears may va- 
nish; our difficulties may find a period at 
last ; by and by our tears may be dried 
up, and our wounded hearts be healed. 
If no other hope remain to us, yet we 
know that ere long we shall arrive at 
those peaceful mansions where the weary 
are at rest. Our troubles will at least 
cease there. Death will compose our 
fears and take away our pains. Though 
no bright interval should gild the remain- 
der of the day, when once the sun of life 
is set, the night we know will be still and 
easy ; we shall rest then, if not before ; 
and if our state be such that we find no 
intermission of our anguish, that night is 
probably not far oif. 

These hopes nothing can take from us ; 
we have no pains that are immortal. The 
storms of life must drive us to the haven 
whither we are steering. Let us keep 
our good character, and we cannot miss 
our port. When sorrows press upon us, 



124 THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 

it is a sweet refiectioiij a thought that 
soothes the anguish of our hearts, that by 
and by we shall shut our eyes on all that 
troubles us, and lay ourselves down, to 
be disturbed no more. But how much 
sweeter, how much more soothing is the 
thought, of what mighty power, Chris- 
tian, have you not often found it to cheer 
you in a dark and painful hour, that when 
we are retired from this world's troubles, 
we shall be received to that where no 
tribulations come ; to pure, and endless 
and inconceivable felicity. This hope 
is indeed an anchor of the soul, sure and 
steadfast; the consolation it contains is 
unspeakable. The vale of death is peace- 
ful, the world to which it leads is glori- 
ous and happy. Happy man whose in- 
heritance is there ! Why will not all men 
be so happy? Happy he whose hope 
can anticipate his arrival there ! He is 
well prepared for all the calamities of 
life ; he can never want a cordial to sup- 
port him under them ; he has reason, and 
will ordinarily have the disposition too, 



THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 125 

to rejoice evermore. He cannot guard 
himselfj and he knows that God neither 
should nor will defend him from the com- 
mon calamities of life; but whatever may 
happen, nothing can come without his 
own consent, that shall destroy his eter- 
nal interests. These consolations, some 
of them we 7nust have, all of them we may 
have, in every hour of trouble, and through 
every hour of life. Say, then, is the ad- 
vice impracticable, is the command un- 
reasonable, that in our afflictions we 
should give thanks? Much matter for 
thanksgiving we can never fail to have. 

Our prayers and supplications in the 
day of our adversity ought further to be 
accompanied with thanksgiving, because 
present troubles do not annihilate former 
mercies. 

If you have lost a blessing, you have 

had one ; it may be that you have had it 

long ; it may be that the time you have 

been happy in the possession of it is 

much longer than the time for which you 

will be afflicted by its loss. It is now 
11# 



126 THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 

taken from you, but the value of the bles- 
sing is not hereby diminished ; the period 
during which you were indulged by it is 
not hereby shortened ; the enjoyment was 
as real as the loss. 

Has sickness seized you ? There is room 
for thankfulness that you know the dif- 
ference between a state of sickness and a 
state of health. Have you lost a friend? 
You had a friend to lose. Have you lost, 
unjustly lost, your esteem and credit in 
the world ? It is true, notwithstanding, 
that for a time you enjoyed the good 
opinion of the world, and your obligations 
imto God who gave you to enjoy it for 
that period are in this respect unaltered 
and unalterable. You cannot, it is true, 
thank God for a blessing he has taken 
from you ; but it is your duty, even when 
it is not permitted you to retain it, it is 
still your duty to give thanks to him that 
you had that blessing once, and that it 
was not taken from you sooner. There 
was a portion of your life that was hap- 
pier than it would have been without it; 



THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 127 

ought you not then to bless him for the 
past, while you implore his pity on the 
present? Does it not become you, while 
you beseech him to comfort you under the 
loss, to thank him that he. blessed you 
with the enjoyment? I said, but perhaps 
I ought not to have said, that you cannot 
thank God for a blessing which he has 
taken from you ; for me thinks, if reason 
have that authority which she ought to 
have over your affections, you will be 
able, even after you have lost the com- 
forts in which you delighted most, in 
some measure to re-enjoy the pleasures 
that they gave you. Though the blessing 
be gone, your memory is not gone with 
it; and whilst this remains, you may 
avail yourself of its aid to supply the ab- 
sence of the comfort you have lost, by 
bringing back into the present the enjoy- 
ments of the past. To a mind that is 
properly affected, it gives less pain than 
pleasure in sickness to recollect the sea- 
son of health; in poverty, the time of 
affluence; in separation from friends, 



128 THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 

the period of communion with them ; 
in adversity, of whatever kind, the 
day of prosperity. Thus we may in 
a manner perpetuate enjoyments, and 
with them our gratitude; the pleasure 
may not be so pure and Uvely, but it is 
by no means unreal. Our blessings may 
administer to our comfort even after we 
are deprived of them ; the present may be 
made more happy by the remembrance 
of the past. The perverseness of man- 
kind, it is true, very often employs their 
recollection to increase their misery. They 
may use it for a better purpose ; and is 
not this a state of mind, after which it is 
desirable for ourselves and dutiful to- 
wards God, that we should carefully as- 
pire ? But; 

We may add, finally, that our com- 
forts, though dead, are in very many in- 
stances not absolutely lost to us : they 
still live in their influences and their con- 
sequences. All our past enjoyments, 
though the immediate instruments or 
sources of them be no more, have each 



THANKSGIVING IN AFFLICTION. 129 

had their efficacy in the great chain of 
Providence, have each contributed their 
share to form the present conjuncture of 
our circumstances, and to give their pre- 
sent aspect to our affairs. Affluent if you 
have been, you have derived some bene- 
fits from that affluence that remain with 
you in your poverty ; and if any man has 
had a kind, a wise and pious friend, 
though it may not be in his power per- 
haps to specify them, he must have de- 
rived some benefits from that friendship, 
that will live with him long after that 
friend is dead ; and it may be, long after 
he is dead himself The same might be 
said of many other blessings once enjoyed 
and then lost again. Ought we not then, 
though we have lost them, to give thanks ? 
So good was the Apostle's counsel, so 
wise are they that keep it, — ^^In all 
things, therefore, by prayer and supplica- 
tion, with thanksgiving let your requests 
be made known unto God." 



TRUST AMIDST TRIAL. 

Father ! I thank thee ; may no thought 
E'er deem thy chastisements severe ; 

But may this heart, by sorrow taught, 
Cahn each wild wish, each idle fear. 

Thy mercy bids all nature bloom : 

The sun shines bright, and man is gay • 
Thine equal mercy spreads the gloom, 
. That darkens o'er his little day. 

Full many a throb of grief and pain 
Thy frail and erring child must know , 

But not one prayer is breathed in vain, 
Nor does one tear unheeded flow. 

Thy various messengers employ j 

Thy purposes of love fulfil ; 
And 'mid the wreck of human joy 

May kneeling faith adore thy will. 



LIFE AND DEATH. 



Oh fear not thou to die ! 
But rather fear to live ; for Life 
Has thousand snares thy feet to try 

By peril, pain, and strife. 



LIFE AND DEATH. 131. 

Brief is the work of Death ; 
But Life ! the spirit shrinks to see 
How full, ere Heaven recalls the breath, 

The cup of woe may be. 

Oh fear not thou to die ! 
No more to suffer or to sin ; 
No snares without thy faith to try, 

No traitor heart within ; 

But fear, oh ! rather fear 
The gay, the light, the changeful scene, 
The flattering smiles that greet thee here, 

From Heaven thy heart that wean. . 

Fear lest in evil hour. 
Thy pure and holy hope overcome 
By clouds that in the horizon lower. 

Thy spirit feel that gloom, 

Which over earth and heaven 
The covering throws of fell despair, 
And deem itself the unforgiven. 

Predestined child of care. 

Oh fear not thou to die ! 
To die, and be that blessed one, 
Who, in the bright and beauteous sky. 

May feel his conflict done ; 

Who feels that never more 
The tear of grief or shame shall come, 
For thousand wanderings from that Power, 

"Who loved, and called him home. 



THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 



The world is filled with the voices of 
the dead. They speak not from the pub- 
lic records of the great world only, but 
from the private history of our own expe- 
rience. They speak to us in a thousand 
remembrances, in a thousand incidents^ 
events, associations. They speak to us, 
not only from their silent graves, but from 
the throng of life. Though they are in- 
visible, yet life is filled with their presence. 
They are with us by the silent fireside 
and in the secluded chamber; they are 
with us in the paths of society, and in the 
crowded assembly of men. They speak 
to us from the lonely way-side ; and they 
speak to us from the venerable \valls that 
echo to the steps of a multitude, and to 
the voice of prayer. Go where we will, 



THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 133 

the dead are Avith us. We live, vre con- 
verse, with those who once hved and 
conversed with us. Their well remem- 
bered tone mingles with the whispering 
breezes, with the sound of the falling leaf, 
with the jubilee shout of the spring-time. 
The earth is filled with their shadowy 
train. Let us look upon ourselves in this 
relation, and see what we owe to the dead. 

What memories, then, have the dead 
left among us, to stimulate us to virtue, 
to win us to goodness. 

The approach to death often prepares 
the way for this impression. The effect 
of a last sickness to develop and perfect 
the virtues of our friends, is often so 
striking and beautiful, as to seem more 
than a compensation for all the sufferings 
of disease. It is the practice of the Catho- 
lic church to bestow upon its eminent 
saints a title to the perpetual homage of 
the faithful, in the act of canonization. 
Bat what is a formal decree, compared 
with the effect of a last sickness, to cano- 
nize the virtue that we love, for eternal 
12 



134 THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 

remembrance and admiration? How often 
does that touching decay, that gradual 
unclothing of the mortal body, seem to be 
a putting on of the garments of immortal 
beauty and life ! That pale cheek, that 
placid brow, that sweet serenity spread 
over the whole countenance, that spiritu- 
al, almost supernatural brightness of the 
eye, as if light from another world already 
shone through it, that noble and touching 
disinterestedness of the parting spirit, 
which utters no complaint, which breathes 
no sigh, which speaks no word of fear nor 
apprehension to wound its friend — which 
is calm, and cheerful, and natural, and 
self-sustained, amidst daily declining 
strength and the sure approach to death — 
and then, at length, when concealment is 
no longer possible, that last firm, triumph- 
ant, consoling discourse, and that last 
look of all mortal tenderness and immor- 
tal trust ; — what hallowed memories are 
these to soothe, to purify, to enrapture 
surviving love ! 

Death, too, sets a seal upon the excel- 



THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 135 

lence that sickness unfolds and conse- 
crates. There is no hving virtue con- 
cerning which — such is our frailty — we 
must not fear that it may fall ; or, at least, 
that it may somewhat fail from its stead- 
fastness. It is a painful, it is a just fear, 
in the bosoms of the best and purest be- 
ings on earth, that some dreadful lapse 
may come over them, or over those whom 
they hold in the highest reverence. But 
death, fearful, mighty as its power, is yet 
a power that is subject to virtue. It 
gives victory to virtue. It brings relief to 
the heart from its profoundest fear. It 
enables us to say, ^' Now all is safe ! The 
battle is fought ; the victory is won. The 
course is finished; the race is run; the 
faith is kept : henceforth, it is no more 
doubt nor danger, no more temptation nor 
strife ; henceforth is the reward of the 
just, the crown which the Lord, the 
righteous Judge, will give !" Yes, death 
— dark power of earth though it seem — 
does yet ensphere virtue, as it were, in 
heaven. It sets it up on high, for eternal 



136 THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 

admiration. It fixes its place never more 
to be changed — as a star to shine onward, 
and onward, through the depths of the 
everlasting ages ! 

In hfe there are many things which in- 
terfere with a just estimate of the virtues 
of others. There are, in some cases, 
jealousies, and misconstructions, and there 
are false appearances ; there are veils up- 
on the heart that hide its most secret 
workings and its sweetest affections from 
us ; there are earthly clouds that come 
between us and the excellence that we 
love. So that it is not, perhaps, till a 
friend is taken from us, that we entirely 
feel his value, and appreciate his worth. 
The vision is loveliest at its vanishing 
away ; and we perceive not, perhaps, till 
we see the parting wing, that an angel 
has been with us. 

Yet if we are not, from any cause, or 
in any degree, blind to the excellence we 
possess, if we do feel all the value of the 
treasure which our affections hold dear; 
yet, I say, how does that earthly excel- 



THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 137 

lence take not only a permanent, but a 
saintly character, as it passes beyond the 
bounds of mortal frailty and imperfection ! 
how does death enshrine it, for a homage, 
more reverential and holy than is ever 
given to living worth ! So that the vir- 
tues of the dead gain, perhaps, in the pow- 
er of sanctity, what they lose in the pow- 
er of visible presence ; and thus — it may 
not be too much to say — thus the virtues 
of the dead benefit us sometimes as much 
as the examples of living goodness. 

How beautiful is the ministration by 
which those who are dead thus speak to 
us — thus help us, comfort us, guide, glad- 
den, bless us ! How grateful must it be 
to their thoughts of us, to know that we 
thus remember them ; that we remember 
them, not with mere admiration, but in a 
manner that ministers to all our virtues ! 
What a glorious vision of the future is it, 
to the good and pure who are yet living 
on earth, that the virtues which they are 
cherishing and manifesting, the good cha- 
racter which they are building up here, 



138 THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 

the charm of their benevolence and piety, 
shall live when they have laid down the 
burthen and toil of life — shall be an in- 
spiring breath to the fainting hearts that 
are broken from them — a wafted odour of 
sanctity to hundreds and thousands that 
shall come after them. Is it not so 7 Are 
there not those, the simplest story, the 
frailest record of whose goodness, is still, 
and ever, doing good? But frail records, 
we know full well, frail records they are 
not^ which are in our hearts. And can 
we have known those whom it is a joy, 
as well as a sorrow, to think of, and not 
be better for it ? Are there those — once 
our friends, now bright angels, in some 
blessed sphere — and do we not sometimes 
say, ^'Perhaps that pure eye of affection 
is on me now ; and I will do nothing to 
wound it?" No, surely, it cannot be, 
that the dead will speak to us in vain. 
Their memories are all around us : their 
footsteps are in our paths ; the memorials 
of them meet our eye at every turn ; their 
presence is in our dwellings ; their voices 



THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 139 

are in our ears : they speak to us — in the 
sad reverie of contemplation, in the sharp 
pang of feeUng, in the cold shadow of 
memory, in the bright light of hope — and 
it cannot be that they will speak in vain. 

The dead not only leave their own en- 
shrined and canonized virtues for us to 
love and imitate ; but they open a future 
world to our vision, and invite us to its 
blessed abodes. 

They open that world to us by giving, 
in their own deaths, a strong proof of its 
existence. 

The future, indeed, to mere earthly 
views, is often ''a land of darkness as 
darkness itself, and of the shadow of 
death without any order, and where the 
light is as darkness." Truly, death is 
^'without any order." There is in it 
such a total disregard to circumstances, 
as shows that it cannot be an ultimate 
event. That must be connected with 
something else ; that cannot be final, 
which, considered as final, puts all the 
calculations of wisdom so utterly at defi- 



140 THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 

ance. The tribes of animalsj the classes 
and species of the vegetable creation, come 
to their perfection, and then die. But is 
there any such order for human beings? 
Do the generations of mankind go down 
to the grave in ranks and processions? 
Are the human, like the vegetable races, 
suffered to stand till they have made pro- 
vision for their successors, before they de- 
part? No; without order, without dis- 
crimination, without provision for the fu- 
ture or remedy for the past, the children 
of men depart. They die — the old, the 
young ; the most useless, and those most 
needed ; the worst and the best alike die ; 
and if there be no scenes beyond this life, 
if there be no circumstances nor allot- 
ments to explain the mystery, then all 
around us is, as it was to the doubting 
spirit of Job, ^' a land of darkness as dark- 
ness itself." The blow falls, like the 
thunderbolt beneath the dark cloud ; but 
it has not even the intention, the explana- 
tion, that belongs to that dread minister. 
The stroke of death must be more reckless 



THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 141 

than even the lightning's flash — yes, that 
solemn visitation that cometh with so 
many dread signs — the body's dissolution, 
the spirit's extremity, the winding up of 
the great scene of life, has not even the 
meaning that belongs to the blindest agents 
in nature, if there be no reaction, no reve- 
lation hereafter ! Can this be ? Doth God 
take care for things animate and inani- 
mate, and will he not care for us ? 

Let us look at it for a moment. I have 
seen one die — the delight of his friends, 
the pride of his kindred, the hope of his 
country : but he died ! How beautiful 
was that offering upon the altar of death ! 
The fire of genius kindled in his eye ; the 
generous affections of youth mantled in 
his cheek; his foot was upon the thresh- 
old of life ; his studies, his preparations 
for honored and useful life, were com- 
pleted ; his breast was filled with a thou- 
sand glowing, and noble, and never yet 
expressed aspirations : but he died ! He 
died! while another, of a nature dull, 
coarse, and unrefined, of habits low, base, 



142 THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 

and brutish, of a promise that had nothing 
in it but shame and misery — such an one, 
I say, was suffered to encumber the earth. 
Could this be, if there were no other sphere 
for the gifted, the aspiring, and the ap- 
proved, to act in? Can we beUeve that 
the energy just trained for action, the em- 
bryo thought just bursting into expression, 
the deep and earnest passion of a noble 
nature, just swelling into the expansion 
of every beautiful virtue, should never 
manifest its power, should never speak, 
should never unfold itself? Can we be- 
lieve that all this should die ; while mean- 
ness, corruption, sensuality, and every 
deformed and dishonored power, should 
live 7 No, ye goodly and glorious ones ! 
ye godlike in youthful virtue ! ye die not 
in vain ; ye teach, ye assure us, that ye 
are gone to some world of nobler life and 
action. 

I have seen one die ; she was beautiful ; 
and beautiful were the ministries of life 
that were given her to fulfil. Angelic 
loveliness enrobed her ; and a grace as if 



THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 143 

it were caught from heaven breathed in 
every tone, hallowed every aflfection, 
shone in every action — invested, as a halo, 
her whole existence, and made it a light 
and blessing, a charm and a vision of 
gladness, to all around her : but she died ! 
Friendship, and love, and parental fond- 
ness, and infant weakness, stretched out 
their hand to save her ; but they could 
not save: her ; and she died ! What ! did 
all that loveliness die ? Is there no land 
of the blessed and the lovely ones, for 
such to live in? Forbid it, reason, re- 
ligion ! — bereaved affection, and undying 
love ! forbid the thought ! It cannot be 
that such die in God's counsel, who live 
even in frail human memory forever ! 

I have seen one die — in the maturity of 
every power, in the earthly perfection of 
every faculty ; when many temptations 
had been overcome, and many hard les- 
sons had been learned ; when many ex- 
periments had made virtue easy, and had 
given a facility to action, and a success to 
endeavor ; when wisdom had been learned 



144 THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 

from many mistakes, and a skill had been 
laboriously acquired in the use of many 
powers; and the being I looked upon 
had just compassed that most useful, most 
practical of all knowledge, how to live, 
and to act well and wisely; yet I have 
seen such an one die ! Was all this trea- 
sure gained only to be lost? Were all 
these faculties trained only to be thrown 
into utter disuse ? Was this instrument — 
the intelligent soul, the noblest in the 
universe — was it so laboriously fashioned, 
and by the most varied and expensive ap- 
paratus, that, on the very moment of being 
finished, it should be cast away forever? 
No, the dead, as we call them, do not so 
die. They carry our thoughts to another 
and a nobler existence. They teach us, 
and especially by all the strange and 
seemingly untoward circumstances of 
their departure from this life, that they, 
and we, shall live forever. They open 
the future world, then, to our faith. 

They open it also, and in fine, to our 
affections. No person of reflection and 



THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 145 

piety can have lived long without begin- 
ning to find, in regard to the earthly ob- 
jects that most interest him, — his friends — 
that the balance is gradually inclining in 
favor of another world. How many, after 
the middle period of life, and especially 
in declining years, must feel — if the expe- 
rience of life has had any just effect upon 
them — that the objects of their strongest 
attachment are not here. One by one, 
the ties of earthly affection are cut asun- 
der; one by one, friends, companions, 
children, parents, are taken from us; for 
a time, perhaps, we are ^4n a strait be- 
twixt two," as was the apostle, not de- 
ciding altogether whether it is better to 
depart ; but shall we not, at length, say 
with the disciples, when some dearer 
friend is taken, ^^ let us go and die with 
him?" 

The dead have not ceased their com- 
munication with us, though the visible 
chain is broken. If they are still the 
same, they must still think of us. As 
two friends on earth may know that they 
13 



146 THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 

love each other without any expression, 
without even the sight of each other; as 
they may know, though dwelhng in diffe- 
rent and distant countries, without any 
visible chain of communication, that their 
thoughts meet and mingle together; so 
may it be with two friends of whom the 
one is on earth and the other is in heaven. 
Especially where there is such a union 
of pure minds that it is scarcely possible 
to conceive of separation, that union 
seems to be a part of their very being ; 
we may believe that their friendship, their 
mutual sympathy, is beyond the power of 
the grave to break up. '^ But ah ! we 
say, if there were only some manifesta- 
tion ; if there were only a glimpse of that 
blessed land ; if there were, indeed, some 
messenger bird, such as is supposed in 
some countries to come from the spirit 
land, how eagerly should we question it !" 
In the words of the poet, we should say, 

" But tell us, thou bird of the solemn strain, 
Can those who have loved, forget ? 
We call, but they answer not again j 
Do they love, do they love us yet? 



THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 147 

We call them far, through the silent night, 
And they speak not from cave nor hill ; 
We know, we know, that their land is bright, 
But say, do they love there still ?" 

The poetic doubt we may answer with 
plain reasoning, and plainer scripture. 
We may say, in the language of reason, 
if they live there, they love there. We 
may answer in the language of Jesus 
Christ, '^he that liveth and beheveth in 
me shall never die." And again ; '^ Have 
ye not read," saith our Savior, '' that 
which was spoken unto you by God, say- 
ing, I am the God of Abraham, and the 
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? God 
is not the God of the dead, but of the liv- 
ing." Then is it true that they live 
there ; and they yet speak to us. From 
that bright sphere, from that calm region, 
from the bowers of life immortal, they 
speak to us. They say to us, ^^ Sigh not 
in despair over the broken and defeated 
expectations of earth. Sorrow not as 
those who have no hope. Bear, calmly 
and cheerfully, thy lot. Brighten the 



148 THE VOICES OF THE BEAD. 

chain of love, of sympathy-j of commu- 
nion with all pure mindsj on earth, and 
in heaven. Think, oh ! think of the 
mighty and glorious company that fill the 
immortal regions. Light, life, beauty, 
beatitude, are here. Come, children of 
earth ! come to the bright and blessed 
land !" I see no lovely features reveal- 
ing themselves through the dim and sha- 
dowy veils of heaven. I see no angel 
forms enrobed with the bright clouds of 
eventide. But '^ I hear a voice, saying, 
write, blessed are the dead who die in the 
Lord, for they rest — for they rest from 
their labors, and their works — works of 
piety and love recorded in our hearts and 
kept in eternal remembrance — their works 
do follow them." Our hearts — their work- 
manship — do follow them. We will go 
and die with them. We will go and live 
with them forever ! 

Oh ! death ! — dark hour to hopeless un- 
belief! hour to which, in that creed of 
despair, no hour shall succeed ! being's 
last hour ! to whose appalling darkness 



THE VOICES OF THE DEAD. 149 

even the shadows of an avenging retribu- 
tion were brightness and relief — death ! 
what art thou to the Christian's assurance? 
Great hour of answer to hfe's prayer — 
great hour that shall break asunder the 
bond of life's mystery — hour of release 
from life's burden — hour of reunion with 
the loved and lost — what mighty hopes 
hasten to their fulfilment in thee ! What 
longings, what aspirations, — breathed in 
the still night, beneath the silent stars — 
what dread emotions of curiosity — what 
deep meditations of joy— what hallowed 
imaginings of never experienced purity 
and bliss — what possibilities shadowing 
forth unspeakable realities to the soul, all 
verge to their consummation in thee ! 
Oh! death! the Christian's death! what 
art thou but the gate of life, the portal of 
heaven, the threshold of eternity ! 
13# 



VOICES OF THE DEAD. 

Oh ! there are moments when the cares of life 

Press on the wearied spirit ; when the heart 

Is fainting in the conflict, and the crown, 

The bright, immortal crown for which we strive, 

Shines dimly through the gathering mists of earth. 

Then, Voices of the Dead ! sweet, solemn Voices ! 

How have I heard ye, in my inmost soul ! 

Voices of those who, while they walked on earth, 

Were linked unto my spirit by the ties 

Of pure ajOfection — love more strong than death ! 

Ye cry, " Frail child of earth ! tried, tempted one ! 

Shrink not ! despond not ! strive as we have striven 

In the stern conflict ; yet a little while, 

And thou shalt be as we are ; thou shalt know 

How far the recompense transcends the toil." 

Sweet sister ! thou wert parted from my side, 
Ere yet one shade had dimmed thy loveliness — 
While still the holy light of innocence 
Was radiant round thee j thou hast past away, 
In purity unsullied, to his bosom. 
Who in his love said, " Suffer little children 
To come unto me, and forbid them not.'* 
Mine only sister ! thou art calling me — 
By all a sister's love, by every hope 



VOICES OF THE DEAD. 151 

Which withered at thy tomb to bloom in heaven — 
To that bright home, where all the severed links 
Of the dear household band again shall join, 
Nor through eternity the silver chain 
Of purity, and love, and peace, be broken. 

Friend of my youth ! how lately, in thy beauty 
And gladness, thou wert with me! Life's young 

flowers 
"Were budding round us j — now, my lips have pressed 
Their last, sad kiss upon thy pale, calm brow, 
And the delight of many eyes is hid 
In the dark house of death. My friend ! My friend » 
'T is thy sweet voice is pleading — shall the hope . 
Which tinged, as with a ray of heavenly light. 
The clouds which gathered round the parting hour — 
The blessed hope of meeting thee again, 
Where death is not, be lightly cast away ? 

My mother ! my mother ! thoughts of thee 
Come o'er my spirit, like the dews of heaven 
Upon the fainting flowers. Best beloved 
Of all the dear departed ! to thy child 
Thine image rises, in thy mournful sweetness 
And touching beauty, fading from the earth. 
I hear thy voice as when I knelt before thee. 
And thou didst lay thy hand upon my head. 
And raise thy tearful eyes to heaven in prayer 
To Him, who, though the mother leave her child, 
Will not forsake the orphan. Thy full soul 
Was poured in supplication, dying saint ! 



152 TO THE MEMORY OF A FRIEND- 

"Wert thou not heard ? surely thou wert ! by Him 
Who, loving thee, hath called thee to himself! 
Surely thou wert ! — even now that voice of prayer 
Is floating round me, breathing hope and peace. 
Thy God has been my God — thy trust, my trust j 
His goodness faileth not. 0, may he grant, 
That yet again the mother with her child 
May bow to worship Him, the Merciful, 
In that bright temple where no tone of sorrow 
Is mingling in the rapturous burst of praise ! 



TO THE MEMORY OF A FRIEND. 

We miss thy voice while early flowers are blowing, 
And the first flush of blossom clothes each bough, 

And the spring sunshine round our home is glowing, 
Soft as thy smile — thou shouldst be with us now ! 

With us ! — we wrong thee by the earthly thought — 
Could our fond gaze but follow where thou art, 

Well might the glories of this world seem nought 
To the one promise given the pure in heart. 

Yet wert thou blest e'en here — oh ! ever blest 
In thine own sunny thoughts and tranquil faith ; 

The silent joy that still o'erflowed thy breast, 
Needed but guarding from all change, by death. 

So is it sealed to peace ! — on thy clear brow 
Never was care one fleeting shade to cast, 

And thy calm days in brightness were to flow, 
A holy stream, untroubled to the last ! 



A PRAYER IN AFFLICTION. 153 

Farewell ! thy life hath left surviving love 

A wealth of records and sweet " feelings given," 

From sorrow's heart the faintness to remove, 

By whispers breathing <' less of earth than heaven." 

Thus rests thy spirit still on those with whom 
Thy step the paths of joyous duty trod, 

Bidding them make an altar of thy tomb, 

"Where chastened thought may offer praise to God ! 



A PRAYER IN AFFLICTION. 

Let me not wander comfortless, 

My Father, far from thee, 
But still, beneath thy guardian wing. 

In holy quiet be. 

The storms of grief, the tears of woe, 
Soothed by thy love, shall cease, 

And all the trembling spirit breathe 
A deep, unbroken peace. 

The power of prayer shall o'er me shed 

A soft celestial calm ; 
Sweeter than evening's twilight dews, 

My soul shall drink its balm. 

For there the still small voice shall speak 
Thy great, thy boundless love ; 

And angel forms the mourner call 
To the bright realms above. 



DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 



The afflicted are not commonly address- 
ed on the subject of their duties. We find 
ourselves disposed rather to sympathize 
with, than to exhort them. Grief is pri- 
vileged, and we presume not to approach 
it, except with tenderness and respect. It 
is already bowed down. If we could, we 
would relieve it of the burdens which it 
bears ; we would not lay other burdens 
upon it. 

But the thought of duties which it 
owes is not to a good mind a burdensome 
thought, nor is the recommendation of 
them felt by such a mind to be an un- 
kindness. A true sympathy dictates a 
regard to the best good, the religious good, 
of the objects of its concern, and, as far as 
it can excite them to a conduct becoming 



DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 155 

their condition, it is assured that it will 
at the same time lighten their grief. The 
afflicted have their duties, and these de- 
manding only the more to be considered 
on account of the allowances which they 
are tempted to make for themselves, and 
the indulgence with which any weakness 
of theirs is naturally regarded by others. 
To a brief suggestion of some of these let 
our attention now be given. 

The obligation to preserve moderation 
in sorrow may be first named. 

We are not taught that we must not 
grieve. If it be right to prize the blessings 
which God gives, it cannot be wrong to be 
pained when he recalls them. We are not 
prohibited from a strong grief. Jesus, our 
master and example, wept. But what is 
enjoined on us to avoid is, a sorrow such 
as those indulge who are without hope ; 
that is, a despairing, an abandoned sor- 
row. Moderation, indeed, is a somewhat 
indefinite word. Its requisitions vary 
with different circumstances, so that what 
is moderation in one case would be excess 



156 DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 

and extravagance in another. But we 
sufficiently well understand that immode- 
rate feelings are such as exceed the bounds, 
which, in the given case, reason and sense 
of duty, in a fair consideration of their 
dictates, prescribe ; and we shall not in 
practice be often wrong in deciding where 
this censure ought to attach. In fact, 
there will not be presented occasion for 
nice distinctions in the exercise of that 
judgment; for the extravagance which 
will not keep due limits, will, of its na- 
ture, go on to overstep them far and 
manifestly. 

We are evidently depressed to an inor- 
dinate degree, if we suffer any minor 
evils to bring an habitual gloom over our 
spirits, and distrust over our views of life. 
There are those, it may be feared, to 
whom any undesirable occurrence, though 
itself of no considerable moment, is a sort 
of signal for all painful thoughts to throng 
into the mind. What they have endured, 
they permit to color their view of every 
object. What existed just as much before 



DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 157 

as now, and was just as real an evil, but 
one which they either saw to be trifling, 
or had trained themselves to account tole- 
rable, appears, under the new influence 
which has been exerted, in quite another 
aspect. But lately they were contented ; 
but some single cause of dissatisfaction 
has arisen, and in the altered hue which, 
instead of contemplating it and disposing 
of it alone, they have suffered it to give 
to their spirits, they have proceeded to 
call up all painful subjects of reflection 
accessible to their imaginations ; and their 
minds are filled with darkness. 

This is a very reprehensible as well as 
unfortunate habit of mind. Sufficient for 
the resources as well as the endurance of 
the day is the evil thereof; and to call 
up other troubles because there is one 
with which we must needs contend, is no 
act of Christian prudence. But our atten- 
tion is rather due to those on whom has 
fallen the blow of some real adversity. 
Their grief, though such as to move hu- 
man sympathy and divine compassion, 
14 



158 DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 

they must allow would be blamable if it 
should be indulged without measure and 
control. To grieve, and to grieve bitterly, 
according as the occasion is one of dis- 
tressing trial, is, as has been said; a tri- 
bute to nature on which religion does not 
frown. But to abandon one's-self to grief, 
to indulge the passion without attempt at 
restraint, is plainly a course unworthy 
of a being, whom, in all circumstances, 
conscience and sense of duty ought to 
admonish, and trust in God ought to sus- 
tain. To concentrate the attention on 
what has been lost, so as to acknowledge 
no worth and take no satisfaction in 
blessings which remain ; to suffer our im- 
patience to vent itself in murmurs against 
God, or a sullen or irritable deportment to 
our associates ; to refuse to be comforted, 
and permit sorrow to put an end to our 
usefulness, or prey upon our health or 
life ; — these are intemperate expressions 
of grief, which a Christian cannot approve 
in another, nor allow in his own practice. 
But how is moderation in grief to be 



DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 159 

maintained ? For it is easy to say that 
we should be resigned ; the difficulty is, 
how to acquire that state of feeling. 
Doubtless it is to be maintained in part 
by consideration of the criminality of an 
opposite course, evincing as this does such 
a want of self-command, and such a want 
of gratitude for God's continued favors, 
and of confidence in his parental love. 
But it must be owned that the tempest of 
the feelings is not at once to be stilled, by 
reflecting merely that we do wrong to 
suffer it to rage. What we are bound to 
do, we are equally bound to seek and use 
the means of doing; and the speediest 
and most effectual way to recover peace 
of mind, when the obligation of that en- 
deavor is felt, seems to be, to trace out 
and contemplate the causes which exist 
for acquiescence. Accordingly, I know 
of nothing more characteristic of a Chris- 
tian mourner, than a readiness to see, and 
rate at their due worth, whatever conso- 
lations may be found. Is our affliction 
such as is common to man, or have we 



160 DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 

long had merciful notice of its approach? 
We ought not to magnify it ^^ as if some 
strange thing had happened." Is the bless- 
ing denied or withdrawn, compensated by 
other blessings ; or had we a protracted en- 
joyment of it before we were called to re- 
sign it ; or are we, after all, more privileged 
on the whole than most or than many of 
our associates ? Let us not shut our eyes 
to this, but own it and be thankful for it. 
At all events, that we have reason and 
revelation, and may have a hope of ever- 
lasting life, whatever else we may have, 
or want, or lose, is enough, one would 
think, to forbid us to say that we have no 
resource for happiness left. Whatever we 
have possessed, it was God who gave it ; 
and he remains as able as he then was 
in some way to supply its place, or in- 
demnify us with other bounties, or other- 
wise reconcile us to our privation. What- 
ever we may have suffered, he is able, — 
this is a truth which perplexes our ima- 
ginations for the future, but our experience 
vouches it for the past, — he is able to make 



DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 161 

it co-operate with all the arrangements 
of his kind providence for our good; and 
ifj as we sometimes might seem to desire, 
the management of our concerns could be 
transferred from his hands to our own, 
how plain is it that we should soon be 
driven to ask, as the greatest of boons, 
that he would resume the trust. How- 
ever we may have been tried, it has not 
been as he was, who for our sakes ^^ en- 
dured such contradiction of sinners against 
himself;" and to him we may always look 
when we are tempted to be weary and 
faint in our minds. Such considerations 
are but a few of the most general ones, to 
which in its adversity the religious mind 
has recourse, to chasten its tumultuous 
emotions. Special considerations of a 
similar tendency belong to each individual 
visitation of sorrow. If we will be blind 
to them, we may sorrow without hope. 
But if, as our duty is, we take pains to 
search them out and do them justice, our 
grief may be keen, but it will hardly be 

indulged beyond all bounds of reason. 
14# 



162 DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 

To have learned to grieve without ex- 
travagance will be a preparation for other 
duties of the afflicted, of which I proceed, 
secondly, to name the maintenance of a 
benevolent interest in others. 

It has been often mentioned as a good 
use of affliction, that it softens the heart ; 
and that tendency it doubtless has, when 
its action is regulated by a Christian spirit. 
But immoderate grief is in its nature 
a selfish, an anti-social passion. The 
mourner who does not feel that the obli- 
gations of a Christian are upon him, is 
tempted to think too much of the immu- 
nities of his condition, and, along with 
this, to judge very erroneously of its 
claims. As to the latter, conceiving that 
excess of grief proves great intensity of 
affection, he refuses to control his sorrow 
lest he should seem to wrong an attach- 
ment which he knows was cordial and 
devoted. A heathen moralist could rea- 
son better than this. '^ No evil," said the 
eloquent Roman, ^' hath happened to my 
departed friend. Whatever it be, it con- 



DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 163 

cerns only myself; and to be severely 
afflicted at one's own misfortunes is a 
proof not of love to our friends, but to our- 
selves." And though this mode of arguing 
certainly does not show that grief on the 
like occasion is unreasonable, it does show 
that we cannot reasonably indulge it to 
extravagance, on the ground of any dis- 
interested sentiments which it proves. 
And if we are assured that others will be 
tender, in their blame of us, for any weak 
and selfish surrender to our griefs, this is 
the worst of reasons why we should be 
tender of ourselves. There has much 
been very mischievously written, in books 
of poetry and fiction, and elsewhere, going 
to represent inconsolable sorrow, forever 
brooding on its painful recollections, and 
withdrawn by them from other cares, in 
an amiable point of view ; and the young 
and sentimental have been often betrayed 
by that outrageous representation. A 
Christian cannot acknowledge the least 
justness in it. The immoderate passion 
of grief, as far as its excess is voluntary, 



164 DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 

as far as it is to be traced to indulgence, 
is to be regarded in the same light with 
other immoderate passions. Its victims 
are to be pitied, but certainly they are not 
to be justified, much less to be admired. 
What is a culpable excess in grief, it 
may be difficult, or impossible, for any but 
the individual concerned to know. Men 
are not formed alike ; and an excessive sen- 
sibility, constituting a sort of moral impo- 
tence in this respect, has seemed some- 
times as if it were a part of the original 
constitution. Also, there may be con- 
ceived a complication of sorrows which 
would threaten to enervate the stoutest, 
and overwhelm the best fortified Christian 
hearts. But, apart from the large and 
just allowance due to such peculiar causes, 
he who should be in the way to die, as it 
is said, of a broken heart, — however others, 
in their indulgence, may regard him, — has 
scarcely a right to regard himself with 
more respect, than if he were falling a vic- 
tim to any other intemperance. An un- 
restrained passion, — let me call it, for 



DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 165 

plainness' sake, by a harder name, an un- 
governed temper, — is wearing upon his 
strength. It may be now too late for him 
to resist its ravages, but so it is in other 
cases of inordinate self-indulgence, which 
excite less commiseration. The fault was 
in not beginning the work of self-control 
in season. If, indeed, he struggled with 
all his might, but ineffectually, he stands 
acquitted in his conscience and before his 
judge. If he did not so struggle, till, 
through his own fault, it was too late, he 
has been his own destroyer. 

Yes, no one has a right, because he 
has been afflicted, to suppose that he may 
surrender himself to unprofitable and 
selfish grief If this were admissible, and 
every one who was entitled to the privi- 
lege were to claim it, how many do we 
suppose would remain in the world, who 
were under obligation to concern them- 
selves for others' happiness ? That the 
afflicted should appeal to others for sym- 
pathy, — for I need not repeat that these 
remarks have application only to cases of 



166 DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 

wilful perseverance, of self-indulgence in 
lamentation, — is not only right ; it is even 
benevolent. It is an acceptable mark of 
their confidence in others' good will. But 
it is not right that they should retire with- 
in themselves, and on the ground that they 
are so disheartened by their calamities, 
dispense themselves from all interest in 
others' concerns; and still less is it right 
that they should inflict perhaps the worst 
pang on the hearts of those who share 
their sorrow, by cherishing bitter regrets 
which they will not permit to be consoled. 
Some time of solitude is reasonably allow- 
ed to the afflicted to compose their spirits; 
and there are scenes of ordinary action 
from which, if there be no distinct call of 
duty, they may for a further time be ex- 
cused from shrinking. But the dispensa- 
tion thus created from the duties of one's 
place in life, is one of no long duration. 
It should rather be the aim to go back to 
them as soon as the needful strength can 
be recovered ; and the afflicted disciple of 
that man of sorrows, whose sorrows never 



DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 167 

withheld him from the work of doing 
good, will be impatient to give abundant 
proof, that, in being made to feel for him- 
self, he has been led to feel more sensibly 
for others. Even to the earliest period of 
his recovered self-command, there is a 
favorite ministry of benevolence peculiarly 
appropriate ; for the afflicted are the best 
consolers of affliction. Their communion, 
if it be in other respects what it may be, 
is worth more to a mourner than that of 
the best of other friends. 

A third counsel belonging to our subject 
is given by the wise man, where he says, 
'^ In the day of adversity, consider." 

The day of adversity is a time espe- 
cially favorable to that serious reflection, 
which to all may be so useful, and of 
which many stand so much in need. Gay 
views of life are hasty and superficial; 
and such are the views to which in a 
course of uninterrupted prosperity the 
mind is liable to be confined. It is apt 
then to be giddy, and so to look at nothing 
steadily ; to be hurried from object to ob- 



168 DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 

ject, and so to look at nothing long ; to be 
confident in its judgments, so as to give 
them no fair opportunity to be right; to 
be flattered, which is but another name 
for being deluded. The view of serious- 
ness and humility, — states of mind which 
affliction favors, — is likeliest to be the 
view of truth ; and if adversity too has 
its occasions of false judgment, and a de- 
pressed mind, no less than an elate one, 
may discern objects through a distorting 
medium, still we shall be the better assur- 
ed of a true result for comparing observa- 
tions made from different points of view. 
The reflections of adversity certainly tend 
to reduce many things to their true pro- 
portions, which may have figured before 
us with a magnified importance. They 
do strip ^'the worshipped pageantry of 
pride" of much of its attraction. They do 
show us, that there is something we need 
more than the gratifications of the passing 
hour, and something beyond what wealth 
can purchase. They do expose the pre- 
tensions of every thing external to the soul 



DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 169 

to confer a trustworthy happiness, and 
display the worth of the treasures which 
are lodged within it. 

The thought of our sins in prosperity 
is apt to be a transient and unaffecting 
thought. In our adversity the considera- 
tion of them comes to us with solemnity 
and power. Our feelings already harmo- 
nizing with the sentiments which they 
ought to prompt, they are seen in their 
reality ; they make their inexcusableness 
and their danger known. Our obligations 
too then present themselves in an impres- 
sive form. We find ourselves thrown on 
our own resources for peace of mind. We 
are made to feel that an approving con- 
science, and, what naturally attends it, a 
tranquil trust in God and hope of his ap- 
probation, are what we have cause most 
to covet or to prize, as the case may be ; 
and the holy life which wins them reveals 
itself to us for what it is, — the one thing 
demanding our diligent and earnest pur- 
suit. 

But the consideration most directly 
13 



170 DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 

pressed on the afflicted by the state to 
which they have been brought, is, of what 
use does it admit for the furtherance of 
their spiritual interests. I do not say, for 
what purpose has it been ordained to 
them ; for this is a question which they 
cannot expect completely to resolve, 
though, if they use it well, one purpose 
for which it will then appear to have been 
sent is, to make them better men. The 
proper subject of concern in any posture 
of circumstances, is, not that it has occur- 
red ; — that it has occurred is now a deter- 
mined and unalterable thing ; — but, how 
to make the best of those circumstances — 
what use to fix on, to be made of things as 
they stand. The afflicted are to consider, 
what temper of mind their condition de- 
mands of them to manifest ; what virtues 
it gives them facilities for cultivating, and 
how its aid may be secured for that use ; 
how they may so demean themselves in 
their trial as to please God, and to serve 
the cause of the religion of Jesus, as others 
in time past have done, of whose example 



DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 171 

of patient endurance of calamity they are 
themselves now experiencing the benefit. 
Revolving such considerations, and carry- 
ing their lessons into practice, how many 
have afterwards found occasion to say, 
that affliction was a genuine and distin- 
guished blessing to them. The best cha- 
racters we have known are such as have 
been formed under its discipline. There 
are examples of an excellence, which, 
without training of this nature in some 
form, does not seem capable of being at- 
tained. An old philosopher said, of a 
voyage in which he suffered shipwreck, 
and lost his earthly all, that it was the 
most successful voyage he ever made, for 
it led him to renounce other pursuits for 
the pursuit of wisdom and virtue. How 
many Christians are there who trace ac- 
quisitions, which now incomparably above 
all others they prize, to considerations 
suggested, resolutions formed, feelings 
chastened, under circumstances which, at 
the time, they regarded only as the most 
distressingly disastrous. 



172 DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 

Once more ; ^^ is any afflicted, let him 
pray." '^ He is a miserable man," says 
one, ^' who is afflicted and cannot or will 
not pray." 

Let the afflicted pray, because he much 
needs what the world cannot give him, 
and what God, whoni he addresses, is 
able and ready to give. Let him pray, 
because the very act of prayer will tran- 
quillize his spirit, and raise it above pas- 
sionate sorrow, and inspire it with new 
hope. Let the afflicted pray, because 
prayer is the natural language of confi- 
dence in the best of friends, and that con- 
fidence will grow and brighten while it is 
expressed. When we draw nigh to God 
to ask comfort of him, and strength to sus- 
tain the day of his visitation, it cannot be 
but that every feeling as if he had wrong- 
ed us, as if he had dealt hardly with us, 
in the trial we endure, will be banished 
from our minds. Let the afflicted pray, 
because in that season when the mind in 
its desolation has recourse to the power 
which alone can give it support, and the 



DUTIES OF THE AFFLICTED. 173 

love that knows no limitj prayer has a 
peculiar fervor, is a peculiarly deep and 
earnest breathing of the affections; the 
worth of the privilege of prayer is more 
than ever revealed, and the pleasures of 
devotion are permanently endeared to the 
soul. Let the afflicted pray, because, as 
has been seen, their situation imposes on 
them duties ; duties, through which they 
may advance their own spiritual interests, 
please God, profit others, and serve the 
cause of Christ ; and to acquit themselves 
well of these, they need guidance and 
strength from above, whence prayer will 
bring strength and guidance down. Let 
the afflicted pray, finally, because the 
great example of sufierers, Jesus, prayed. 
And let them endeavor to pray with some 
portion of his spirit. Submission is the 
Christian's divine peace, which passeth 
understanding ; and if the prayer which 
breathes it do not bring down, as it did to 
the Savior, a strengthening angel, it will 
itself do an angel's office to the stricken 
heart. 

15=^ 



THE MOURNER BLESSED. 

Deem not that they are blessed alone, 
Whose days a peaceful tenor keep ; 

The God who loves our race has shown 
A blessing for the eyes that weep. 

The light of smiles shall beam again 
From lids that now o'erflow with tears, 

And weary hours of woe and pain 
Are earnests of serener years. 

Oh there are days of hope and rest 
For every dark and troubled night ! 

And grief may bide, an evening guest, 
But joy shall come with early light. 

And ye, who o'er a friend's low bier 
Now shed the bitter drops like rain, 

Hope that a brighter, happier sphere 
Will give him to your arms again. 

Nor let the good man's trust depart, 
Though life its common gifts deny ; 

Nor hopeless sorrow break the heart. 
That, spurned of men, fears not to die. 

For God hath marked each anguished day, 
And numbered every secret tear ; 

And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay 
For all his children suffer here. 



CONSOLATION. 175 



CONSOLATION. 

When the clouds of desolation 

Gather o'er my naked head, 
And my spirit's agitation 

Knows not where to turn or tread ; 
When life's gathering storms compel me 

To submit to wants and woes, 
Who shall teach me, who shall tell me 

Where my heart may find repose ? 

God and Father ! thou did'st give me 

Sorrow for my portion here ; 
But thy mercy will not leave me 

Helpless, struggling with despair ; 
For to thee, when sad and lonely, 

Unto thee alone I turn, 
And to thee, my Father ! only 

Look for comfort when I mourn. 

Nor in vain — for light is breaking 

'Midst the sorrows, 'midst the storms j 
And methinks I see awaking 

Heavenly hopes and angel forms ; 
And my spirit waxes stronger, 

And my trembling heart is still ; 
And my bosom doubts no longer 

Thine inexplicable will. 



THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 



No subject of exhortation is oftener 
chosen by the divine and the moralist 
than the dangers of prosperity and the 
blessings of adversity. It is a good sub- 
ject, and deserves all that can be said upon 
it ; but should not the reverse of the pic- 
ture be sometimes held up to view 7 There 
is little need, perhaps, to dwell much on 
the moral advantages of prosperity in 
order to make it desired, as such a state 
needs no new attractions to render it 
beautiful in the eyes and welcome to the 
heart of man ; but it seems desirable to 
point out to the child of immortality the 
dangers which beset the path of sorrow ; 
a path which, though thorny to the feet 
and obstructed to the view, is generally 
represented as enlightened by the day- 



THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 177 

spring from on high, and infallibly tend- 
ing to heights of holiness and peace. Do 
we sufficiently reflect that such is not its 
universal tendency ? Are we aware that 
adversity has slain its thousands, though 
prosperity may have destroyed its ten 
thousands 7 It behooves us to be careful 
that, while we desire and aim at advance- 
ment in holiness, we are not lost through 
want of circumspection. While we guard 
against the snares of wealth, ease, and 
worldly privileges, let us not flatter our- 
selves that, as soon as sorrow overtakes 
us, we must necessarily become more wor- 
thy of the love of the Father who chasten- 
eth us, that our hearts must necessarily be 
purified, and our afiections elevated. 

Though sorrow may soften the heart, 
it may also harden it ; it may expand or 
contract the affections ; it may bring us 
to God or alienate us from him, according 
to our previous habits of mind, or to our 
course of action under the pressure of new 
circumstances. Instead of believing that 
^e bitter draught of sorrow will assuredly 



178 THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 

confer immortality, we must bear in mind 
that it will act according to our prepara- 
tion for its operation ; it may renovate our 
powers ; it may restore our vigor, and 
infuse new life into our spiritual frame ; 
but it may also exert a relaxing and be- 
numbing influence, and vmawares lay us 
prostrate in eternal death. If we do not 
endeavor to discern what influence the 
operations of Providence ought to have on 
our character, and strive to subject our- 
selves duly to them, we may expect in 
vain the precious results for which we 
look with confidence. Some results will 
be produced, perhaps valuable, perhaps 
noxious, but our expectations will be 
disappointed unless we anxiously observe, 
and, as far as possible, carefully direct the 
process. It is not every lump of earth 
which will yield gold in the crucible, and 
it is not every mind which will come forth 
from its fiery trial adorned with solid and 
shining virtues. 

But though adversity may benefit some 
minds more than others, it has its dangers 



THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 179 

for all. That which is oftenest pointed 
out is distrust of the goodness of God. 
This is however, in our opinion, by no 
means the greatest. In a Christian coun- 
try like this, where every sabbath renews 
the praises of the Father of mercies, where 
preachers abound to display instances of 
his goodness, where through the whole 
range of its literature, from the volume 
which invites little children to ^' bless 
God, for he is very good," to that which 
appeals to his ^' glorious works" to show 
that he is the '• parent of good," express 
acknowledgments of the benignity of 
Providence are found in every page, — a 
belief in this benignity is ^ early formed 
and so strongly maintained, that it usually 
stands the shock of adverse events, and 
dwells, actively or passively, in the mind 
through life. It is almost as uncommon, 
in this age and country, to meet with a 
denial of the unalterable goodness of God, 
as a doubt of his existence. Those who 
are practically resigned to his will and 
those who are not, equally acknowledge 
the justice and mercy of that will. 



180 THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 

A much greater danger appears to us to 
be a tendency in the sufferer to imagine 
that he is an object of God's pecuHar 
favor ; that he is exalted in the sight of 
God and man by his mere suffering, inde- 
pendently of the effect which it may have 
on his character. Where this fatal notion 
once obtains entrance, presumption usurps 
the place of humility; the spirit conde- 
scends to receive the inflictions of its pa- 
rent, and congratulates itself on its sub- 
mission. It looks round to see what the 
world thinks of its resignation, and from 
that moment it becomes the slave of the 
world. 

The world takes upon itself to prescribe 
rules for the demeanor of those who are 
under the pressure of sorrow ; and hence 
is another snare for the weak and the 
worldly. The same events produce such 
different effects on different minds, that 
the innocent pleasures in which one 
mourner finds a welcome solace, may call 
up associations too powerful for the forti- 
tude of another. But the world has one 



THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 181 

rule for all, and he who does not obey it 
must expect to meet its censure and its 
scorn. The humble sufferer who believes 
not that his feelings are of consequence 
enough to interfere with the comfort of 
others, who suppresses his sighs that the 
smiles of those around him may not be 
checked, who goes everywhere, and sees 
every one, and leaves no accustomed duty 
unperformed, is too often censured as 
wanting feeling; while he who shuts him- 
self up, or is never seen but in gloom and 
tears, and who requires peculiar consider- 
ation for his situation from every one he 
sees and every company he enters, is held 
up to admiration as an example of refined 
sensibility, and is honored with the praise 
of being ^^ a true mourner." The world 
w/Z judge; but he who submits his feel- 
ings arid conduct to its judgment, takes 
upon him a yoke which will grow heavier 
with each day of his life in this world, 
and which may deliver him over to a still 
worse destiny in another. Any one who 
has studied the structure of the human 
16 



182 THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 

mind is aware, that there is no such thing 
as permanent, utter misery. Our associa- 
tions are so complex, the pleasant are so 
mixed with the painful, the power of ex- 
ternal objects over them is so great, and 
the tendency of the mind to call up plea- 
surable and consolatory thoughts is so 
strong, that no efforts of our own, from a 
regard to the opinion of the world, or any 
other motive, can long depress the elasti- 
city of the soul. If such be the happy 
bent of our nature, why should it be coun- 
teracted ? If we possess the power of 
enjoying innocent pleasures, our true wis- 
dom is to seek them, whatever our cir- 
cumstances may be, and whatever the 
world may think of our sensibilities. 

It need scarcely be suggested how careful 
we should be not to censure our fellow- 
sufferers for shrinking from efforts which 
are beneficial to ourselves, or to judge of 
their conduct by our own, be the apparent 
similarity of the circumstances ever so 
striking. While we feel that the world 
may as well attempt to fathom the ocean, 



THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 183 

or reach the uttermost parts of the earth, 
as to compass our griefs or estimate our 
consolations, we must guard ourselves 
against a similar presumption, though our 
own discipline may have enlightened our 
eyes and instructed our judgments. 

Two other dangers next present them- 
selves to our notice, opposite in their cha- 
racter, but equally formidable. There is 
much fear that the soul which has suffer- 
ed much should become callous ; and this 
peril may be enhanced by the very ten- 
dency of the mind, (to turn to pleasant 
thoughts wherever they can be found,) 
which has been mentioned as one of the 
happiest circumstances of our nature. It 
is a privilege which the Father of mercies 
has conferred on his rational offspring; 
and while it serves as an alleviation of 
our griefs and a means of refreshment and 
invigoration to the soul, it can be subser- 
vient only to good : but when we make 
use of it to turn our minds from serious 
reflection, to escape from Him who would 
purify us by salutary discipline, we con- 



184 THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 

vert our privilege into a curse. If, when 
we find our hopes disappointed and our 
blessings withdrawn, we can find a refuge 
from regret in the trifling interests of the 
world, if we play the truant to avoid our 
punishment, we must not congratulate 
ourselves on bearing it well ; but should 
rather mourn that what ought to be the 
most efficacious means of grace does but 
harden our hearts, accumulate new perils 
upon our heads, and augment the heavy 
reckoning which futurity has in store 
against us. To this danger the strong 
and high spirit is most exposed: to its 
opposite — timidity, the gentle and humble 
soul is peculiarly liable. 

But few words are necessary here. 
Those who have known what real sorrow 
is, know also what it is to tremble at every 
breath, to dread every change, to strain 
the aching sight to discern what new evils 
lie in the clouded future, to have a super- 
stitious, unacknowledged feeling that 
every effort will end in disappointment, 
every blessing prove a snare, every acqui- 



THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 185 

sition give place to bereavement. They 
scarcely dare approach the streams of 
God's bomity lest they should be defiled 
with blood, and are ready to refuse to 
taste the fruits which he showers into 
their lap, lest they should find them dust 
and bitter ashes. This timidity may, for 
a while, consist with a desire to acquiesce 
in the appointments of Providence; but 
if not timely checked, it will lead through 
the gradations of despondency, ingrati- 
tude, and insensibility, to atheism, specu- 
lative and practical. 

Many more are the snares into which 
the unwary may fall in a state which is 
too often thought to be one of peculiar 
safety. But those Avhich remain will 
suggest themselves to the mind of the 
reader under some of the preceding heads. 
The principal of those on Avhich we can- 
not now enlarge are dreaminess, — living 
in a world of imagination and sentiment — 
and listlessness in the performance of 
necessary but irksome duties. The first 
arises from the error of fancying that the 



186 THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITVT. 

subjects of discipline are the objects of 
God's peculiar favor, in a strictly literal 
sense; the last, from the selfishness 
against which, in various forms, we have 
been warning the reader. It is so evi- 
dently hostile to all improvement, so fatal 
to the hopes which ought to be the Chris- 
tian's chief treasure, and all arguments 
against it are so obvious and so common, 
that the mere mention of it is sufficient 
here. 

Of all these perils, those are the most for- 
midable which endanger the sincerity and 
ingenuousness of the heart. But the soul 
may be lost where sincerity and resigna- 
tion both exist ; want of circumspection 
alone may be fatal. How important is 
this truth to us ! 

A man may mourn most deeply and 
most truly ; he may earnestly desire to 
exercise resignation; he may, with the 
utmost sincerity, declare to himself that 
he does not wish one circumstance of his 
lot to be altered, and yet fall into snares 
as dangerous as any which can be found 



THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 187 

in the flowery paths of prosperity. He 
may arise in the morning, and pray with 
real devotion for resignation to bear, and 
strength to support^ and then go forth, sa- 
tisfied that the blessing of God is on him, 
and that he must necessarily be benefited 
by his trial. But when he enters the 
bustling scenes of the world, he fears to 
surrender himself to his accustomed im- 
pulses of activity, and to his long-formed 
habits of employment. He is ashamed if 
he find that the objects before him have 
beguiled him of his grief for a while ; he 
asks himself if the innocent enjoyment 
into which he was beginning to enter is 
not inconsistent with the regret which he 
owes to the memory of the friend he has 
lost, or the sympathy which is due to 
those with whom he is suflfering. He 
remembers that he is in afliiction, and has 
a vague idea that a peculiar frame of 
thought and manners must be maintained 
for some time after the blow has fallen. 
The consciousness of peculiar circumstan- 
ces hangs upon him, and makes him look 
16# 



188 THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 

in every face for condolence, in every oc- 
currence for consideration to his feelings, 
in every word for sympathy. He has 
heard and read so much of the experience 
of persons under trial, and knows so well 
how their demeanor is made a subject of 
speculation, that he beUeves it necessary 
to relate his own feelings, and to watch 
that his own behavior accords with his 
circumstances. If he writes a letter to a 
friend, he fills his sheet with his thoughts 
of resignation ; he tells of his consolations, 
his hopes, and the blessings which remain 
to him ; and if he finds himself stopping 
his pen to choose his expressions, if he 
detects himself painting with words, if a 
suspicion flits across his mind that he is 
exciting his feelings in order to write, ra- 
ther than writing to give a natural relief 
to his feelings, he recurs to the old im- 
pression that some record of his present 
state should remain, and that it is for the 
glory of religion that he should show how 
great and how various are her consola- 
tions. Thus he passes the day, desiring 



THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 189 

that the will of God should be his will, 
and believing that it is so ; but, in reality, 
thinking only of himself, and living only 
to himself. If, in the silent watches of 
the night, sad thoughts arise, and the 
tender remembrance of lost blessings comes 
to awaken the deepest emotions of his soul, 
he waters his pillow with tears, and in- 
dulges the anguish of a wounded spirit ; 
still assuring himself that he does not and 
will not repine, and that this grief is only 
the fitting tribute of faithful affection. 
Again he rises, with an aching head and 
a heavy heart, wearied and enervated, 
and more engrossed with himself than 
ever, though he may again pray, and pray 
with sincerity, ^' Thy will be done." 

What are the consequences of such a 
course of feeling and action as this? What 
but daily increasing selfishness; morbid 
feelings which, instead of retaining or 
deepening their intensity, must induce in- 
sensibility ; a gradual forgetfulness of 
God and disregard of duty; a growing 
craving for the sympathy, the approba- 



190 THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 

tion, the applause of others ; a paramount 
desire of being interesting, and the sacri- 
fice of one thing after another, of a//, for 
the sake of being so ? Can any one say 
that this is an exaggerated picture? 
Happy is he who has never known such 
a victim to the dangers of adversity ; but 
happier is he who has resisted and over- 
come similar perils, who has properly esti- 
mated his blessings while he possessed 
them, and become better by resigning 
them ! 

The means of such improvement are 
natural to some minds, easy to others, and 
attainable by all. The grand rule is to 
look Xo principles^ and to lesive feelings to 
take care of themselves. This rule in- 
cludes every thing. Principle will lead 
the mourner to refer all to God; principle 
will oblige him to forget himself, and will 
suggest to him continual occasions of do- 
ing good to others. Principle will teach 
him that affliction is not intended to set 
him apart from others, but to enlighten 
his views of his relation to them, to exalt 



THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 191 

his affections towards them, to animate 
his efforts in their behalf. He must, 
sometimes, notwithstanding his endeavors 
to forget himself, feel what an aching 
void sorrow has left in his heart; but, 
instead of turning his view inwards to 
behold the desolation there, he will look 
abroad with a searching eye on the varied 
aspects which life presents to him : he 
will gather together all the images of 
peace, hope, and joy, which he can lay 
hold on, to supply the cravings of his af- 
fections. He will go forth into the world 
from the house of mourning, calm and 
erect, prepared to abide its storms, and 
ready to welcome its sunshine. He will 
have smiles for the infant, and a heart 
open to its little joys ; he will have cheer- 
fulness for the aged, and a ready hand to 
help their infirmities ; he will have words 
of encouragement and of warning for the 
young, and a watchful eye to protect their 
interests ; he will rejoice in their brilliant 
hopes as if they were his own, and will 
grieve for their destruction as if the loss 



192 THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 

were his. While he can ^' rejoice with 
those who rejoice," he will bury his pe- 
culiar griefs in his own bosom : when 
called on to '^ weep with those that weep," 
he will speak of himself only so far as to 
tell where he found the supports and com- 
forts which, by the blessing of God, have 
been his. He does not desire to shroud 
his mind in mystery ; it is there, clear and 
transparent, for all to look into who choose : 
he only wishes that the gusts of passion 
should not ruffle, or the clouds of despon- 
dency overshadow it. His regard to duty 
imposes on him the care of his health and 
of his tranquillity. The works of God 
are his study abroad ; the word of God 
employs him at home. He keeps his 
powers in full exercise all day, and at 
night he seeks and obtains rest; or, if 
darkness and silence exert on him their 
peculiar influence of calling up the sha- 
dows of departed joys, he endeavors to be 
grateful that these joys were his; he esti- 
mates the privileges they have afforded 
him, and numbers the blessings he has 



THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 193 

left ; he listens to the assurances of faith, 
that all these and many more are laid up 
for him as a treasure in heaven ; and his 
soul glows with the resolution, that where 
his treasure is, there his heart shall be 
also. It requires no great discernment to 
trace the further progress of his discipline. 
We need only look at some who have thus 
trodden their thorny path, and then we 
may see how he will daily advance in 
the love of God and man, and in fitness 
for his heavenly destiny. He will attain 
the heights of holiness, and will encourage 
many to follow him thither ; for he Avill 
say, by example, though not in words, 
'^ Be of good cheer; I have overcome the 
world." 

Where one such sufferer is seen, we 
may rejoice in the power of religion, tend- 
ed and cherished by adversity : when we 
see several, a whole family, submitting to 
the will of God, and working out their 
own and each other's salvation, in pa- 
tience and self-oblivion, we may glory 

that such a sanctuary abides on earth for 
17 



194 THE DANGERS OF ADVERSITY. 

the spirit of holiness to dwell in. Such a 
family are God's peculiar people, and if 
their obedience to his commands will not 
avail to exclude the angel of chastisement 
from their abode, a milder presence will 
soon follow to repair the devastation, and 
to whisper the gracious benediction, 
^^ Peace be to this house." Peace will 
remain with them; will rest upon them 
when they go out and when they come in, 
when they lie down and when they rise 
up, in the dwelling and in the field, in 
the house of God, and in the intercourses 
of the world. 



TRUST IN DIVINE LOVE. 

LET my trembling soul be still, 
While darkness veils this mortal eye, 

And wait thy wise, thy holy will : 
"VVrapt yet in fears and mystery, 

1 cannot, Lord ! thy purpose see ; 
Yet all is well — since ruled by thee. 

. When, mounted on thy clouded car, 
Thou send' St thy darker spirits down, 

1 can discern thy light afar, 

Thy light sweet beaming through thy frown ; 

And, should I faint a moment, then 

I think of thee, and smile again. 

So trusting in thy love, I tread 

The narrow path of duty on : 
What though some cherished joys are fled ? 

"WHiat though some flattering dreams are gone? 
Yet purer, brighter joys remain : 
Why should my spirit then complain ? 



196 



THE PROMISE OF JESUS. 

" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest." 

Thou of the heavy heart, his promise hear, 
Thou in whose cup earth's ills are deeply rife, 

Turn unto him without a dread, a fear. 
Turn unto him, and he will give thee life. 

There is but One can keep thee in the hour. 
The darkest hour of sorrow's troubled day ; 

Then when the tempests o'er thy spirit lower, 
Turn to thy God! — oh bend the knee and pray ! 

The ^' bruised reed" in mercy he will bind. 

He will not crush the heart that ^'once knew strife" — 

But in his home a welcome all will find ; 
Turn unto him, and he w^ill give thee life ! 



THE BELIEVER'S HOPE. 

How dark, how desolate 

Would many a moment be, 
Could we not spring 
On hope's bright wing, 

O God I to heaven and thee ! 



THE BELIEVER S HOPE. 

Life is a prison cell 

We are doomed to occupy, 
In which confined, 
The restless mind 

Pines, pants for liberty. 

And sometimes streaks of light 
And sunny beams we see j 

They shine so bright 

Through sorrow's night. 
They needs must come from thee. 

Say, shall a morning dawn 
When prison-days are o^er, 
Whose smiling ray 
Shall wake a day, 
That night shall cloud no more ? 

Blest hope ! and sure as blest ; 
Life's shades of misery 
Shall sooii be past, 
And joy at last 
Waft us to heaven and thee. 

17# 



197 



THE USES OP AFFLICTION. 



That happiness, which is fed only by 
the world's smiles, by scenes of uninter- 
rupted gayety, is delusive and false. The 
soul has a happiness, which need not 
be destroyed by the passing clouds that 
overshadow man's earthly pilgrimage. I 
would show this, and would teach, if I 
could, that from scenes which cause the 
worldly mind to mourn in hopelessness 
the soul may gather strength and per- 
manent peace. I would gather un wither- 
ing garlands even from the tomb, to over- 
spread and cheer the path of life. I 
would show that it is good to be afflicted, 
and would thus make even the sorrows 
of earth minister to the comfort, as they 
may minister to the improvement of the 
undying spirit. I would produce the 
conviction, that all is good in the purposes 
of an infinite Father, that all may con- 



THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 199 

tribute to the souPs health, strength, 
peace, and immortal happiness. 

But are afflictions necessarily conducive 
to man's happiness? We answer, no. 
They are good in the purposes of God, 
but whether they shall be good to any 
individual depends upon himself. They 
are part of a moral discipline, and their 
efficacy depends upon the free action of 
the soul itself. The gifts of God's pro- 
vidence are good; but how many abuse 
them, and convert his blessings into the 
instruments of personal degradation and 
ruin ! Amid the frowns of the world, in 
the disappointment of earthly hopes, by 
the struggles of poverty, some have form- 
ed characters of exalted excellence, and 
have shown forth the power of the soul to 
rise above earthly trials, to gain purity 
and power by the storms which beat upon 
it. Some have, under such circumstances, 
borne the nearest resemblance ever ex- 
hibited on earth to him, who had not 
where to lay his head. Others, again, 
have withered under the trials of life, 



200 THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 

have let go their hold on heaven, forgotten 
their immortal destiny, yielded to sin, and 
now plead the discouragements in their 
path as an apology for their moral ruin 
and spiritual death. Some too have risen 
from the bed of sickness, or come forth 
from the chamber of mourning, with holier 
purposes, with purer affections, and a 
more cheerful and sustaining piety ; others 
again have passed through such scenes, 
and come from them in discouragement, 
or with a more decided selfishness, or 
with a complaining, testy, distrustful 
habit of mind, abusing the world, yet 
clinging to it with most exclusive devo- 
tion, and pouring contempt upon God, 
and Christ, and every emotion of a con- 
fiding, aflfectionate piety. 

Whether afflictions be good for any in- 
dividual, must depend, under God, upon 
the manner in which they are received 
and employed. They will be good only 
so far as they are made instrumental in 
turning the bad man from his iniquities, 
and impressing upon his soul the image 



THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 201 

of his Maker ; or as they give to the good 
man new ardor in duty, and a fuller con- 
fidence in God, urge him onward in his 
course, bring him into more intimate 
communion with the spiritual world, and 
impart brighter visions of the glories 
hereafter to be revealed. 

We now proceed to illustrate the ten- 
dency of afiiiction to minister to man's 
spiritual and eternal happiness. 

What is requiste to bring religion with 
a life-giving power to the souls of men? 
It is attention, deep, practical attention. 
^^ My people will not consider," was the 
complaint urged by God himself against 
the disobedient. Religion meets a want 
of the soul, which nothing else can meet, 
which nothing else can supply. Religion 
is the one thing needful ; needful to give 
harmony to the elements which compose 
man's moral nature, needful to his virtue, 
needful to his peace, needful to his spiritual 
progress, needful to that hope which is an 
anchor to the soul. But religion is nothing 
as a mere name, a mere abstraction; it 



202 THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 

is nothing except as the spirit of man 
firmly grasps its truths, acts upon them, 
lives by them, and rejoices in them. But 
this can be done only by deep, practical 
attention. The allurements of the world, 
its busy cares, its engrossing interests, 
tend to render him a stranger to his 
spiritual capacities and wants, to turn 
away the thoughts from the world within, 
to fix the affections upon objects as tran- 
sitory as the flower which blooms and 
fades in a day. Religion is neglected j 
the world is every thing; and the soul is 
famished. Place this endangered being, 
thus treacherous to his own happiness, 
upon the bed of sickness. Let him feel 
the pressure of disease, and experience 
the rush of thought which breaks in 
upon him; and what then are things 
transitory and perishing? Wealth, am- 
bition, pleasure will not, cannot satisfy 
him amid the paroxysms of pain and the 
withering of every earthly hope. The 
soul must experience unmitigated anguish, 
if it cannot hold communion with the 



THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 203 

infinite Spirit, if it cannot look forward to 
treasures enduring as its own immortal 
nature. But at such a season attention 
is fixed upon Jesus, who came into the 
world to guide the spirits of men to in- 
timate communion with the infinite Father 
and with the spiritual world, to open the 
treasures of God's love and the enduring 
riches of the immortal mind. Religion 
becomes an object of fixed, practical, 
grateful attention. 

Is not this the tendency and design 
of afiiictions? Then it is good to be 
afiiicted; good for the pious man, as 
it deepens his religious impressions, quick- 
ens his sensibilities, and brightens his 
hopes; good for the careless and irre- 
ligious man, as it may save his soul from 
death. The good man will bless God for 
his trials; and oh how guilty is that man 
who perverts the very means of healing 
the diseases of his soul, of redeeming him 
from guilt, and making him an heir of 
eternal glory, — who rises from the bed of 
sickness, or comes from the chamber of 



204 THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 

mourning, to blunt the sensibilities there 
excited by earthly turmoil and guilty 
pleasures, or to murmur and complain, to 
cling more closely to the world, and, like 
the soldier who has escaped where thou- 
sands have fallen around him, to regard 
himself as the son of destiny, and proof 
against the weapons of death ! 

Afflictions are adapted not only to awak- 
en attention to religion, but to prepare 
the mind to receive and love its spirit. 
There is an obtuseness of moral feel- 
ing generated by a familiar intercourse 
with the world. Vice is seen in a thou- 
sand forms, and by familiarity with it 
delicacy of feeling is blunted, and moral 
discrimination becomes less acute. I can- 
not describe to you the state of feeling 
produced by any severe affliction. You 
must experience it to understand it fully. 
But what is the tendency of being brought 
to feel that earthly things cannot satisfy 
the soul's wants; that you are in the 
presence of a holy God; and that you 
may soon stand before the bar of Jesus 



THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 205 

Christ? I would point you to the testimony 
of those who have been accustomed to 
Usten to the accents of the sick and dying, 
of those who have been called to minister 
to the mourner's sorrows, of those who 
have been recently instructed in the 
school of affliction. They will tell you 
that such scenes produce a delicacy of 
moral feeling, a shrinking back from all 
iniquity, and a panting for purity, which 
it is worth worlds to preserve amid the 
collisions and temptations of life. This 
is the very state of feeling which is con- 
genial with the spirit of the gospel, and 
which renders it the welcome instrument 
of heaven to the soul; the very state 
which gives a sympathy with the holy 
Jesus, and renders man capable of enjoy- 
ing the riches of God's love. 

By affliction, also, man is enabled to 
determine what is truly of vital importance 
in religion. It is wonderful to behold what 
power the severe pressure of sorrow has 
in simplifying the religious faith, and 
fixing the mind on those great truths 
18 



206 THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 

which all Christians admit. He who listens 
to the sentiments and prayers of a single- 
hearted Christian in the hour of severe 
trial, will find his soul clinging to these 
truths, which all good men love, and 
clinging to them as alone furnishing 
strength and comfort. 

Afflictions, in the next place, teach the 
love of God, submission to his will, 
gratitude for his favors, and a cheerful 
trust in his mercy. These are high 
Christian virtues, without which the heart 
must be a stranger to permanent peace. 
But it may be deemed little less than a 
perfect paradox to assert that these virtues 
are taught in the school of affliction. I 
am aware that they are not always learn- 
ed there, that among the tried and dis- 
tressed are often heard bitter complaints, 
is often witnessed the sorrow of the world, 
which worketh death. But if these virtues 
are not cherished in the school of afflic- 
tion, they seldom are cherished anywhere. 
Look into the history of man, as it ex- 
hibits itself constantly before your eyes. 



THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 207 

Where do you witness the purest love of 
Godj the most heartfelt gratitude to him, 
the most profound submission to his will, 
and the most cheerful trust in his mercy ? 
You will not usually find these high 
qualities of character in those whose 
progress in life has been one of almost 
unchecked prosperity, who have had no 
severe struggles with adversity, whose 
health has never been interrupted, whose 
plans have seldom been frustrated, and 
to whom the gifts of Providence have been 
granted in rich profusion. Among such 
persons we too often witness self-con- 
fidence, pride, hardness of heart, vain 
display, and, if not open impiety, a me- 
lancholy insensibility to religion, a clinging 
to the earth, a forgetfulness of God and 
heaven. It is among those whose souls 
haye been severely disciplined, who have 
wrestled frequently with trials, among 
those who to the carnally minded seem to 
have the least cause for gratitude, that 
you will find the highest spiritual qualities, 
the most perfect harmony of character, 



208 THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 

the most entire love of God, the most 
unwavering trust in his mercy, and the 
most cheerful acquiescence in his will. 

How is this fact to be explained 1 Mere 
suffering in itself cannot awaken love, or 
inspire gratitude or confidence toward the 
being who inflicts it. It is kindness that 
awakens love, and, when united with 
wisdom and power, produces confidence 
and submission. How is it then that 
these most cheerful virtues are brought 
out and perfected by the severest dis- 
cipline ? It is by fixing the attention upon 
God, and opening the heart to his good- 
ness. There are no unmitigated sufferings 
in human life. All that is requisite to 
call forth love to God, gratitude for his 
mercies, and submission to his will, is 
such a clear perception, such a deep feel- 
ing of this truth, as can be acquired only 
in the school of afiiiction. There the 
thoughts are forced in upon the soul itself, 
and elevated above this world of shadows. 
God is made present, the spiritual nature 
of man is more fully understood, and, on 



THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 209 

inquiring for comfort, the mourner finds 
abundant sources opened to him. He 
now sees what he had not seen before, 
that his past history has been but a dis- 
play of the divine goodness towards him ; 
in the present kindness of friends, in the 
cheerful face of nature, in the expressions 
of happiness on the countenances of the 
multitude around him, in the comforts of 
faith, and in the hope of endless joys, he 
feels that God is good, and becomes con- 
vinced that his present anguish, however 
mysterious in its appointment, must b 
intended for good, and will result in good. 
He learns the application of Christian 
principles to his own spiritual wants. He 
fathoms their meaning, and feels their 
power. Talk to him of suffering, and he 
is firm. Speak to him of mercies; his 
bosom heaves, and his tears flow. It is 
thus that he gains spiritual power, and 
lays deep the foundations of his happiness. 
Oh who, that feels the dangers of the 
world, who, that has any perception of 
the worth of the soul, Avho, that has felt 
18=^ 



210 THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 

the softening and elevating power of 
earthly trials, will not say that it is good 
for him that he has been afflicted ? 

Again, it is one part of the blessed 
ministry of affliction to cherish a tender 
sympathy with others in their trials, and 
to call forth an active and discriminating 
beneficence. Admit that there is no 
natural connection between con tinned pros- 
perity and a devoted selfishness ; yet how 
often are they seen united ! Suppose 
that a man has great tenderness of feeling, 
yet never has had his sensibilities tried 
by severe sufiering, how can he fully 
enter into the feelings and wants of those 
who are deeply afflicted? Imagination 
cannot paint to him in true colors the 
conflicts through which they are passing. 
He may pity them, and minister to them 
with a most compassionate spirit ; but a 
perfect sympathy can belong to him only 
who has himself been tried. He alone who 
has been himself exposed to severe sick- 
ness, who has seen the world withering 
away, who has felt in near anticipation 



THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 211 

the breaking of dear connections, who has 
known how deeply the mind sympathizes 
with the body, and what phantoms play 
before it and distress it in its dreamy 
struggles, can fully sympathize with the 
sick; and he alone, with whom earth's 
dearest ties have been sundered, can come 
to the mourner with accents, and with 
expressions of countenance, Avhich will 
reach the depths of his sorrowing soul, 
and impart solid comfort. These scenes 
not only give the power of becoming sons 
of consolation; but they awaken benevo- 
lent feelings, and bind man to man by the 
cords of love. 

Once more ; it pertains to the ministry 
of affliction to render man familiar with 
his own character, and with the founda- 
tion on which his hope of happiness is 
placed. Afflictions are trials of character 
as well as means of improvement. But 
on whose account is the trial instituted? 
Not surely on God's ; for he knows before 
the trial what will be its issue. It must, 
therefore, be instituted on man's account, — 



212 THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 

to show him what is the strength of his 
principles, what the complexion of his 
hope. The good man may often be in 
great anxiety with regard to his spiritual 
condition, the strength of his love to God, 
and the security of the foundation on 
which he rests. Trials come upon him ; 
he still clings to God : thy press heavily ; 
he is unshaken in his faith, and his hope 
brightens, as the clouds gather blackness 
over him. He perceives that there is 
strength within him, and, though it be 
small, he yet rejoices in it, and is pre- 
pared by his trials for more vigorous 
efforts to add to his spiritual graces. The 
bad man may have scoffed at religion, and 
ridiculed its fears and hopes; by severe 
affliction the clamor of earthly passions 
is for a moment hushed, and his thoughts 
are forced inward and onward. He finds 
within desolation, and in the prospect 
before him nothing but despair. He sees 
himself, for the first time, what he is. 
His moral sensibilities are touched; he 
cries to God for mercy ; he goes to Jesus 



THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 213 

for salvation, and, in new affections, new- 
purposes, and new principles, he lays the 
foundation of eternal happiness. 

But it is not simply the individual 
sufferer that is benefited by afflictions. 
They have a wider scope of influence. I 
see, while the mother, surrounded by her 
domestic circle, is ministering to one of 
that circle prostrated by disease, the foun- 
tain of tenderness deepening in her own 
bosom. I see the group around her in 
holy sympathy with her. I see affections 
excited, which in future life are to cheer 
and bless the rising generations of men. 
I see in every place of sickness and of 
death the means of kindling the flame of 
love. 

What then is the conclusion to which 
we are brought? That this is, on the 
whole, a happy world ; and that its dark 
and fearful scenes have a most benevolent 
influence upon human happiness. There 
is not a deeper conviction in my own mind 
of any truth than of this, that man, con- 
stituted as he is, would be far less happy, 



214 THE USES OF AFFLICTION. 

were the discipline of affliction to be 
withdrawn, were he to be immortal upon 
the earth. Why then should we shrink 
from taking our part of the sufferings of 
human life ; sufferings which are most 
intimately connected with the full glory 
and perfect bliss of the immortal spirit? 
No; let afflictionjscome; if dispensed by 
the hand of an infinite Father, they must 
be good in their purpose. It remains for 
us to say whether they shall be good for 
us in their effects. 



TIME PASSING. 

Time is passing, time is passing, 
Bid thy restless heart be still j 

Time is passing, time is passing, 
God will work his holy will. 

He who raised the lofty mountain, 
He who painted every flower, 

Will ne'er his wondrous work forsake, 
Nor leave thee at the trying hour. 

For soon, ah soon, the time may come. 
That bears thee to thy home away, 

That breaks the bonds of kindred love. 
And takes thee to the realms of day. 

Though thy heart be tarn by anguish, 
Though thy spirit sink to dust, 

Time is passing, time is passing. 
Put in God thy fervent trust. 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 

Behold the western evening light ! 
It melts in deeper gloom ! 



216 



So calm the righteous sink away, 
Descending to the tomh. 

The winds breathe low — the yellow leaf 
Scarce whispers from the tree ! 

So gently flows the parting breath, 
When good men cease to be. 

How beautiful, on all the hills, 

The crimson light is shed ! 
'T is like the peace the dying gives 

To mourners round his bed. 

How mildly on the wandering cloud 

The sunset beam is cast ! 
So sweet the memory left behind, 

When loved ones breathe their last. 

And lo ! above the dews of night 

The vesper star appears ! 
So faith lights up the mourner's heart, 

Whose eyes are dim with tears. 

Night falls, but soon the morning light 

Its glories shall restore ! 
And thus the eyes that sleep in death 

Shall wake to close no more. 



THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 



Christianity has been properly de- 
nominated the guide to immortaUty ; Je- 
sus expressly styles himself the resurrec- 
tion and the life. Christianity reveals a 
future life ; and in this respect Jesus and 
his religion have done what has not been 
satisfactorily done by any other person or 
any other system of religious belief. On 
this interesting subject the words of na- 
ture are few ; the analogy of the vegetable 
creation and the annual renewal of the 
earth may delight the imagination, but 
can hardly bring conviction to the under- 
standing. Reason and philosophy find 
in the grave a barrier, which they cannot 
pass ; and experience acknowledges her 
utter ignorance of the country beyond it, 
since it remains the bourn from whence 
19 



218 THE christian's hope. 

no traveller returns. But while we anx- 
iously inquire, to whom shall Ave go, the 
gospel beams on us with life and im- 
mortality. The doctrine of a future life 
is a prominent doctrine of Christianity ; 
other considerations inspire only a sha- 
dowy hope, this gives a substantial assur- 
ance. As in Adam all die, even so in 
Christ shall all be made alive ; as after 
the similitude of the parent of the human 
race all men die, so after the similitude 
of the Redeemer of the human race, all 
men shall be raised from the dead. The 
certainty of a future life is far from being 
all that Christianity has given us ; the 
hope of a bare renewal of life would be a 
small boon; the gospel has done much 
more than this, and though it has not 
communicated to us all that perhaps our 
curiosity might prompt us to ask, yet it 
has taught sufficient to satisfy every rea- 
sonable wish. 

First, it teaches that the coming life 
shall be without end ; that the power of 
death will be completely abolished ; that 



( 



219 

our life will exist under a new and im- 
proved form ; that the soul, no longer en- 
cased in a frail and earthly tenement, shall 
be exempted from all susceptibility to dis- 
ease and destruction, and clothed with 
perpetual health and vigor ; this corrupti- 
ble shall put on incorruption, this mortal 
immortality. Existing under a new form, 
it gives us reason to expect an enlarge- 
ment of our faculties, new facilities for 
acquiring knowledge, extended opportu- 
nities of serving God, a nature exempt 
from error, folly, and sin, and a continual 
and accelerated progress in moral good- 
ness. Further, it encourages the expecta- 
tion of an intimate connection with those 
good beings, with whom it must be the 
first of pleasures and of privileges to be 
associated; of entering into the rest Avhich 
remains for the people of God ; and of 
joining the assembly and church of the 
first-born. It inspires the hope of being 
closely united to Jesus Christ and of free 
access to God ; we shall then know him 
even as we are known. Though it has 



220 THE christian's hope. 

not particularly disclosed the place or 
mode of our future existence, yet it assures 
us that it will be in every respect an in- 
finitely better life than the present, and 
surpassing any wishes that we can frame 
of it ; the eye of man hath not seen, nor 
his ear heard, nor his heart conceived the 
things, which God hath prepared for them 
that love him. 

Consider now the completeness of this 
hope. 

Is it not sufficiently definite ? Can we 
name any object of virtuous desire, which 
it does not embrace 7 In the prospect of 
a renewed existence, elevated above all 
fear of death, of a constitution not suscep- 
tible of infirmity, suffering or decay, of a 
nature exempt from error and sin ; in the 
prospect of capacities superior to any 
which you now possess, or of which you 
can form a conception ; in the prospect of 
endless progress in the most valuable 
knowledge and the purest virtue, of a per- 
manent and close connection with the best 
beings in offices of mutual love and ex- 



THE christian's HOPE. 221 

tended usefulness, of an intimate commu- 
nion with Jesus, the blessed author and 
guide of your faith, and of a spiritual fel- 
lowship with the Deity, then the supreme 
object of your adoration, love, confidence, 
and obedience ; in fine, in the prospect of 
a life, where every virtuous desire will be 
gratified, and every delightful anticipation 
realized, Christianity inspires a hope in 
every respect complete, and which may 
well be denominated ^^an anchor to the 
soul." 

I make my appeal to personal experi- 
ence as to the value and necessity of such 
a hope, to support us under the trials in- 
cident to our present condition. 

Hope is the medicine of the soul, the 

cordial which animates and sustains us 

under the labors of life, which alleviates 

the severest afflictions, and which sheds 

an increased splendor over the fairest day 

of earthly prosperity. But the best hopes, 

which take their rise only from this world, 

and whose flight is restricted within the 

narrow range of earthly good, are totally 
19# 



222 THE christian's hope. 

inadequate to allay the fear of death, and 
to remove, or in any measure to mitigate, 
some of the heaviest sufferings to which 
we are here subjected. There are disap- 
pointments, which this world cannot com- 
pensate ; losses, for which it can afford no 
substitute ; sorrows, to which it brings no 
alleviation. If I had no hope beyond the 
present transient scene, I know not how I 
should sustain sorrows, which every day 
befal me ; I know not what should support 
me under the numerous and distressing 
inroads, which death is daily making on 
the circle of my friends. ^' To me I con- 
fess, as one well describes the effect of 
death upon the heathen, to me death 
would have a terrible sound, and could not 
but be attended with a train of the most 
melancholy reflections. It would una- 
voidably mix with all my enjoyments and 
unavoidably allay and spoil their relish. 
It would be like a sword continually hang- 
ing over my head by a single hair ; a 
spectre always haunting my abode ; 
which, whatever some libertines might 



THE christian's HOPE. 223 

pretend, would cast a sudden damp on 
every joy, and leave no present gratifica- 
tion free from pain and uneasiness." 1 
cannot envy that gloomy scepticism or 
that brutal insensibility, which regards 
such events unmoved. I would not wish 
to purchase relief with the extinction of 
memory, since in the always present re- 
collection of departed friends, who de- 
served my respect and affection, I find a 
powerful stimulus to virtue, and a satis- 
faction, though melancholy, yet most re- 
freshing to my wounded and aching bo- 
som. 

In these sentiments I think I utter only 
the sentiments of every virtuous and feel- 
ing heart. What words then can express 
the value of a religion, which dispels all 
anxiety, solicitude, and grief at the de- 
parture of our virtuous and Christian 
friends ? What language can express the 
value of that blessed hope, which entereth 
into that state which is beyond the veil 
of death ; whither the forerunner, the guide 
and prince of life, the conqueror of death, 



224 THE christian's hope. 

even Jesus, has himself entered in glory 
and triumph ? 

Christian father and mother ! when 
you have deposited in the grave the child 
of your affection and confidence and 
hope, perhaps the son whose virtues and 
talents and manly qualities were your 
pride and delight, or the daughter who 
clung closely to your heart, and whose 
affection and tenderness you hoped might 
soften the pangs of adversity, and cheer 
the evening of your life ; — tell me for what 
you would exchange that blessed hope, 
which after a short interval restores them 
to you, enrobed in celestial glory, beauty 
and immortality. Christian ! when you 
have seen the grave close over the mortal 
remains of the father, who has been your 
guide and counsellor and the most faith- 
ful of friends in your prosperity and ad- 
versity ; or the kindest of mothers, whose 
hope and delight you were, who nurtured 
your helpless infancy, and so often watch- 
ed while you slept, and so often, by her 
laborious and affectionate assiduity, sooth- 



THE christian's HOPE. 225 

ed the hours of sickness and pain, and 
who with so many prayers and tears 
daily approached God's mercy-seat for 
your health, happiness, improvement and 
salvation; — tell me for what you would 
exchange the thrilling hope, that they rest 
in peace with that divine Father, who 
cares for them with even more tenderness 
than they cared for you. Christian ! 
when the bosom friend has been snatched 
from your side, the friend with whom 
you took sweet counsel and with whom 
you walked to the house of God, whose 
sentiments and sympathies were all 3''ours, 
whose interests were indissolubly associ- 
ated with your own; when you have 
heard the last affectionate farewell, and 
taken the last look, and caught the last 
beam of kindness which shot from his 
closing eyes ; — say for what would you ex- 
change the transporting hope of a reunion 
in purer friendship in a better world. 
Christians ! (I speak not to the aged 
only, but to those, who have just passed the 
morning of life,) when you remark around 



226 

you the many vacancies which death has 
made among those whom you loved and 
vahied, when you see how many of the 
aged and venerable and deep-rooted trees 
have been upturned, and how many of 
the fairest opening blossoms nipped, how 
many in their meridian have been sudden- 
ly cut down with the unripe and unga- 
thered fruit hanging thick about them, 
when you have so often seen death tram- 
pling with indifference on the pride and 
boast of genius, wit and learning, and 
piercing with his fatal arrow the thickest 
shield and panoply of virtue, and deso- 
lating the fairest scenes of human happi- 
ness, usefulness and promise ; — tell me 
have you never felt the infinite value of 
that hope, which does not permit you to 
think of them as lost; but which com- 
mands you to take a wider prospect of the 
ways and purposes of God, and remark 
that some are but transplanted to a more 
genial soil and clime, there to strike a more 
vigorous root, to put forth fairer blossoms, 
and to pour out a sweeter fragrance, and 



GOD OUR FATHER. 227 

a richer harvest; and that wisdom, be- 
nevolence, usefulness, integrity, and piety- 
shall never want scope, and opportunity 
for exercise, improvement, and progress, 
so long as the greatest and best of Beings 
holds the throne of the universe. 



GOD OUR FATHER. 

Is there a lone and dreary hour, 

When worldly pleasures lose their power ? 

Father ! let me turn to thee, 

And set each thought of darkness free. 

Is there a time of rushing grief, 
Which scorns the prospect of relief? 
My Father ! break the cheerless gloom, 
And bid my heart its calm resume. 

Is there an hour of peace and joy, 
"When hope is all my soul's employ? 
My Father ! still my hopes will roam, 
Until they rest with thee, their home. 

The noon-tide blaze, the midnight scene, 
The dawn, or twilight's sweet serene, 
The glow of life, the dying hour. 
Shall own my Father's grace and power. 



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